How to Install and Configure OpenLiteSpeed Server along with MariaDB and PHP on Ubuntu 20.04

This tutorial exists for these OS versions

Prerequisites

Ubuntu 20.04 based web server.
A non-root user account with sudo privileges.

Update your system.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade

Step 1 - Configure Firewall

Before we begin with the tutorial, we need to configure the Uncomplicated Firewall(UFW) which is usually enabled by default. Let's check the status of the firewall first.

We need to enable SSH, HTTP, HTTPS and ports 7080, 8088 for the firewall.

$ sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
$ sudo ufw allow http
$ sudo ufw allow https
$ sudo ufw allow 7080/tcp
$ sudo ufw allow 8088/tcp

Check the status of the firewall.

$ sudo ufw status
Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
OpenSSH                    ALLOW       Anywhere                  
80/tcp                     ALLOW       Anywhere                  
443/tcp                    ALLOW       Anywhere                  
7080/tcp                   ALLOW       Anywhere                  
8088/tcp                   ALLOW       Anywhere                  
OpenSSH (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
80/tcp (v6)                ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
443/tcp (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
7080/tcp (v6)              ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
8088/tcp (v6)              ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

If it is not working, then start the firewall.

$ sudo ufw enable

Step 2 - Install OpenLiteSpeed

There are various versions of OpenLiteSpeed you can install. Recommended versions are from the 1.6.x or 1.7.x series at the time of writing this tutorial.

We will use OpenLiteSpeed's official Repository for our tutorial which maintains 1.6.x version only.

Add the OpenLiteSpeed Repository Key.

$ wget -qO - https://rpms.litespeedtech.com/debian/lst_repo.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Add the Repository.

$ echo "deb http://rpms.litespeedtech.com/debian/ focal main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openlitespeed.list

Update the Repository.

$ sudo apt update

Install OpenLiteSpeed

$ sudo apt install openlitespeed

Check the status of the server.

$ sudo /usr/local/lsws/bin/lswsctrl status
litespeed is running with PID 21825.

If it is not running, you can start with the following command.

$ sudo /usr/local/lsws/bin/lswsctrl start

Open http://<YOURSERVERIP>:8088 to access your web server. You should see the following page.

Step 3 - Install PHP

OpenLiteSpeed server ships with PHP 7.3 which is pre-enabled. But we want to use PHP 7.4 so we will install our own copy.

Install PHP 7.4 along with some additional packages.

$ sudo apt install lsphp74 lsphp74-common lsphp74-mysql lsphp74-curl

Verify your PHP installation.

$ /usr/local/lsws/lsphp74/bin/php7.4 -v
PHP 7.4.5 (cli) (built: May  7 2020 23:08:38) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.4.5, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

You can check for the enabled PHP modules.

$ /usr/local/lsws/lsphp74/bin/php7.4 --modules

We will configure PHP to work with OpenLiteSpeed later.

Step 4 - Install MariaDB

Install MariaDB server.

$ sudo apt install mariadb-server

Start and enable the MariaDB service.

$ sudo systemctl start mariadb
$ sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Secure your MariaDB installation. This script will set your root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login and drop test tables. Choose a strong password and answer the questions as described below.

$ sudo mysql_secure_installation
[sudo] password for username: 

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MariaDB, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): 
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB 
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n] y
New password: 
Re-enter new password: 
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!

By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MariaDB without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!

By default, MariaDB comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
 - Dropping test database...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!

Cleaning up...

All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MariaDB
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MariaDB!

Once this is done, you can log in to the MySQL shell using the following command.

$ sudo mysql -u root -p

Create a test database and user with access permission. Replace testdb and testuser with appropriate names for your setup. Replace password with a strong password.

CREATE DATABASE testdb;
CREATE USER 'testuser' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON testdb.* TO 'testuser';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit the MySQL shell.

exit

Step 5 - Configure OpenLiteSpeed

Configure Admin Panel

Set the Administrator panel credentials.

$ sudo /usr/local/lsws/admin/misc/admpass.sh
Please specify the user name of administrator.
This is the user name required to login the administration Web interface.

User name [admin]: <username>

Please specify the administrator's password.
This is the password required to login the administration Web interface.

Password: 
Retype password: 
Administrator's username/password is updated successfully!

You can also use this command in case you forget your login details.

To access the administration panel, open http://<YOURSERVERIP>:7080.

On your first login, your browser will give warnings saying your connection is not private. Click Advanced and click "Accept the risk and Continue" (in case of Firefox) or "Proceed to <YOURSERVERIP>(unsafe)" (in case of Chromium-based browser). You won't see the warning again.

You will be greeted by the following screen.

Switch HTTP port back to 80

Let us change the default HTTP port to 80. Log in to your administration panel at http://<YOURSERVERIP>:7080 with the credentials you just created.

You will be greeted by the following screen.

Visit Listeners section from the left. You will see the default listeners with port 8080.

Click the View button to see details configuration. On the next page under Listener Default > General Page, click on the Edit icon and change the port from 8080 to 80.

Click Save and then restart the server by clicking on the Graceful restart button.

Step 6 - Configure PHP

In this step, we need to associate our copy of PHP 7.4 with the server.

Click on Server Configuration section on the left and then on the tab External App. You will see an existing LiteSpeed App for PHP 7.3. We will create our own LiteSpeed App for PHP 7.4. You can easily switch between them later on if you want.

Click on the Add button to create a new app. For the type, select LiteSpeed SAPI App and click on Next.

Next, add the configuration below. Leave all the other fields blank.

Name: lsphp74
Address: uds://tmp/lshttpd/lsphp.sock
Max Connections: 35
Environment: PHP_LSAPI_MAX_REQUESTS=500
             PHP_LSAPI_CHILDREN=35
             LSAPI_AVOID_FORK=200M
Initial Request Timeout (secs): 60
Retry Timeout : 0
Persistent Connection: Yes
Response Buffering: no
Start By Server: Yes(Through CGI Daemon)
Command: lsphp74/bin/lsphp
Back Log: 100
Instances: 1
Priority: 0
Memory Soft Limit (bytes): 2047M
Memory Hard Limit (bytes): 2047M
Process Soft Limit: 1400
Process Hard Limit: 1500

Click Save when finished.

Now that we have created our own PHP 7.4 based app, we need to tell the server to start using it.

Go to the Script Handler tab and edit the lsphp handler. Switch the Handle name to lsphp74 from the drop-down menu.

Click Save and then restart the server by clicking on the Graceful restart button.

To test whether your PHP has been switched correctly, visit http://<YOURSERVERIP>/phpinfo.php in your browser.

Step 7 - Setup Virtual Host

First, we need to create directories for our virtual host.

$ sudo mkdir /usr/local/lsws/example.com/{html,logs} -p

The html directory will hold the public files and the logs directory will contain server logs.

Next, open the Admin console and access the Virtual Hosts section from the left and click the Add button.

Fill in the values as specified

Virtual Host Name: example.com
Virtual Host Root: $SERVER_ROOT/example.com/
Config File: $SERVER_ROOT/conf/vhosts/$VH_NAME/vhconf.conf
Follow Symbolic Link: Yes
Enable Scripts/ExtApps: Yes
Restrained: Yes
External App Set UID Mode: Server UID

Click on the Save button when finished. You will get the following error because the configuration file doesn't exist as of now. Click on the link to create the configuration file.

Click the Save button again to finish creating the Virtual Host.

Once the virtual host is created, go to Virtual Hosts -> Choose Virtual Host(example.com) -> General and modify the configuration as given.

Document Root: $VH_ROOT/html/
Domain Name: example.com
Enable Compression: Yes

Click the Save button when finished. Next, we need to setup index files. Click the edit button against Index files below the General Section. Set the following options.

Use Server Index Files: No
Index files: index.php, index.html, index.htm
Auto Index: No

Click Save when done. Next, we need to choose Log files. Go to the Log section and click Edit against Virtual Host Log and fill the following values.

Use Server’s Log: Yes
File Name: $VH_ROOT/logs/error.log
Log Level: ERROR
Rolling Size (bytes): 10M

You can choose the Log Level as DEBUG if you are on a production/development machine.

Click Save and then click the plus sign in the Access Log section to add a new entry. Fill in the following values.

Log Control: Own Log File
File Name: $VH_ROOT/logs/access.log
Piped Logger: Not Set
Log Format: Not Set
Log Headers: Not Set
Rolling Size (bytes): 10M
Keep Days: 30
Bytes log: Not Set
Compress Archive: Yes

Click Save when done. Next, we need to configure Access Control under the Security section. Set the following Values.

Allowed List: *
Denied List: Not set

Click Save when done. Next, we need to set the Script Handler Definition. Set the following values.

Suffixes: php
Handler Type: LiteSpeed SAPI
Handler Name: [Server Level]: lsphp74

Next, we need to set Rewrite Control under Rewrite section. Set the following values.

And at last, we need to set the Listeners. Go to the Listeners section and click on View button against Default Listener. Then, click on the Add button against Virtual Host Mappings to add a new mapping and set the following values.

Click Save when done. Now, click on the Graceful restart button to apply all the changes above and restart the server.

Step 8 - Setup SSL

Setting up SSL in OpenLiteSpeed requires us to set up two certificates. A self-signed certificate for the overall server and a Let's Encrypt site-specific server.

Let us create the Self Signed Certificate first.

$ openssl req -x509 -days 365 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem -nodes
Generating a RSA private key
..++++
......................++++
writing new private key to 'key.pem'
-----
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:
Locality Name (eg, city) []:
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:
Email Address []:

You can press enter through all the fields and leave them empty.

The certificates are now stored at /home/user directory. We will need this information later.

To use Let's Encrypt, we need to install the Certbot tool.

$ sudo apt install certbot

Obtain the SSL certificate.

$ sudo certbot certonly --webroot -w /usr/local/lsws/example.com/html/ -d example.com

Follow the Interactive prompt.

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator webroot, Installer None
Enter email address (used for urgent renewal and security notices) (Enter 'c' to
cancel): [email protected]
Starting new HTTPS connection (1): acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please read the Terms of Service at
https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.2-November-15-2017.pdf. You must agree
in order to register with the ACME server at
https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(A)gree/(C)ancel: A

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Would you be willing to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a founding partner of the Let's Encrypt project and the non-profit
organization that develops Certbot? We'd like to send you email about our work
encrypting the web, EFF news, campaigns, and ways to support digital freedom.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Y)es/(N)o: N
Obtaining a new certificate
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for example.com
Using the webroot path /usr/local/lsws/example.com/html for all unmatched domains.
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/example/fullchain.pem. Your key file has 
   been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/linode.nspeaks.com/privkey.pem Your cert will
   expire on 2020-09-04. To obtain a new or tweaked version of this
   certificate in the future, simply run certbot again. To
   non-interactively renew *all* of your certificates, run "certbot
   renew"
 - Your account credentials have been saved in your Certbot
   configuration directory at /etc/letsencrypt. You should make a
   secure backup of this folder now. This configuration directory will
   also contain certificates and private keys obtained by Certbot so
   making regular backups of this folder is ideal.
 - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

   Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
   Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le

Now open the Admin console and go to Listeners >> Add New Listener and add the following values.

Listener Name: SSL
IP Address: ANY
Port: 443
Secure: Yes

Click Save when done. Next, go to Virtual Host Mappings section under the SSL Listener by clicking on SSL, click on the Add button and fill the following values.

Virtual Host: example.com
Domains: example.com

Click Save when done.

Next, go to Listeners >> SSL Listener >> SSL Tab >>SSL Private Key & Certificate (Edit button) and fill the following values for the self-signed certificate we created before.

Private Key File: /home/user/key.pem
Certificate File: /home/user/cert.pem
Chained Certificate: Yes

Next go to Virtual Hosts >> example.com >> SSL Tab >> SSL Private Key & Certificate (Edit button) and fill the following values with the Let's Encrypt Certificate.

Private Key File: /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem
Certificate File: /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
Chained Certificate: Yes

Click Save when finished.

Restart the server by clicking on the Graceful restart button.

Step 9 - Test Site

Create a Test file in your html directory.

$ sudo nano /usr/local/lsws/example.com/html/index.php

Paste the following code in the Nano editor.

<html>
<head>
    <h2>OpenLiteSpeed Server Install Test</h2>
</head>
    <body>
    <?php echo '<p>Hello,</p>';

    // Define PHP variables for the MySQL connection.
    $servername = "localhost";
    $username = "testuser";
    $password = "password";

    // Create a MySQL connection.
    $conn = mysqli_connect($servername, $username, $password);

    // Report if the connection fails or is successful.
    if (!$conn) {
        exit('<p>Your connection has failed.<p>' .  mysqli_connect_error());
    }
    echo '<p>You have connected successfully.</p>';
    ?>
</body>
</html>

Visit your site at https://example.com in a browser and you should see the following page.