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Complete Guide on How to Install PHP Framework Laravel using LAMP Stack on AlmaLinux 8

Laravel is one of the most popular and powerful PHP frameworks widely used for building modern, fast, and secure web applications. In this guide, we will thoroughly cover how to install Laravel using a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, PHP) stack on AlmaLinux 8, a highly stable Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)-based Linux distribution for production use.

Prerequisites​

  • Full root access
  • Domain (optional)
  • Basic Linux Command Line

Preparation​

danger

Make sure the firewall and SELinux have been adjusted or temporarily disabled if you want to avoid problems during the initial installation.

Before starting the Laravel installation, make sure your AlmaLinux 8 server is up to date and ready to install the LAMP Stack (Linux, Apache, MariaDB, PHP).

dnf update -y
dnf install epel-release -y

Install Apache​

Apache is a reliable web server and is widely used in production environments. To install it, run the following command:

dnf install httpd -y

Once the installation is complete, enable and start the Apache service with the following command:

systemctl enable --now httpd

To allow access to the server via HTTP and HTTPS, allow the firewall:

firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service={http,https}
firewall-cmd --reload

Install PHP​

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a server-side programming language that is crucial in this stack. We will install PHP 8 from the Remi Repository to use the latest version of PHP.

Run the following command to install the Remi Repository:

dnf install -y https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm

Then list the available PHP using the following command:

dnf module list php

Output example:

AlmaLinux 8 - AppStream
Name                            Stream                              Profiles                                              Summary                                         
php                             7.2 [d]                             common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             7.3                                 common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             7.4                                 common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             8.0                                 common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             8.2                                 common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          

Remi's Modular repository for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64
Name                            Stream                              Profiles                                              Summary                                         
php                             remi-7.2                            common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             remi-7.3                            common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             remi-7.4                            common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             remi-8.0                            common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             remi-8.1                            common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             remi-8.2                            common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             remi-8.3                            common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          
php                             remi-8.4                            common [d], devel, minimal                            PHP scripting language                          

Hint: [d]efault, [e]nabled, [x]disabled, [i]nstalled

Enable the desired PHP module version. For example, for PHP 8.4, run the following command:

dnf module reset php -y
dnf module enable php:remi-8.4 -y

Once the repository is active, we can proceed with installing PHP along with the commonly used essential modules:

dnf install -y php php-cli php-common php-mysqlnd php-fpm php-opcache php-gd php-curl php-mbstring php-xml php-json php-soap php-bcmath

Check the installed PHP version with the following command:

php -v

Install MariaDB​

MariaDB is a replacement for MySQL and is compatible with MySQL-based applications. Run the following command to install it:

dnf module list mariadb

Output example:

AlmaLinux 8 - AppStream
Name                                Stream                               Profiles                                               Summary                                   
mariadb                             10.3 [d]                             client, galera, server [d]                             MariaDB Module                            
mariadb                             10.5                                 client, galera, server [d]                             MariaDB Module                            
mariadb                             10.11                                client, galera, server [d]                             MariaDB Module                            

Hint: [d]efault, [e]nabled, [x]disabled, [i]nstalled

The output above shows that the default version of MariaDB is 10.11 (the latest version from the OS). However, we'll use MariaDB version 11.4.7 using the official repository at https://mariadb.org/download/ and then reset MariaDB to remove it from the OS's default repository:

dnf module reset mariadb

Run the following command to add the MariaDB version 11.4.7 repository:

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/MariaDB.repo

Add the following parameters:

# MariaDB 11.4 RedHatEnterpriseLinux repository list - created 2025-07-31 14:04 UTC
# https://mariadb.org/download/
[mariadb]
name = MariaDB
# rpm.mariadb.org is a dynamic mirror if your preferred mirror goes offline. See https://mariadb.org/mirrorbits/ for details.
# baseurl = https://rpm.mariadb.org/11.4/rhel/$releasever/$basearch
baseurl = https://mirror.its.dal.ca/mariadb/yum/11.4/rhel/$releasever/$basearch
module_hotfixes = 1
# gpgkey = https://rpm.mariadb.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgkey = https://mirror.its.dal.ca/mariadb/yum/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgcheck = 1

Then run the following command to install MariaDB:

dnf install MariaDB-server MariaDB-client

Enable and activate the MariaDB service:

systemctl enable --now mariadb
systemctl status mariadb

Before using it for production or testing, it is best to secure the MariaDB installation first by running the following command:

mariadb-secure-installation

Then follow the instructions that appear:

  • Enter current password for root (enter for none) → [ENTER]
  • Switch to unix_socket authentication → Y
  • Change the root password? → Y
  • Remove anonymous users? → Y
  • Disallow root login remotely? Y
  • Remove test database and access to it? Y
  • Reload privilege tables now? Y

Install Laravel​

Before installing the latest version of Laravel 12, we will first create a virtual host and database (to store Laravel content, configuration, and structure). Run the following command to create a virtual host:

info

Make sure you use a valid domain (FQDN) and also that the DNS A record is directed or pointed according to the server IP used on the server.

nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/focusnic.biz.id.conf

Fill in the following parameters:

/etc/httpd/conf.d/focusnic.biz.id.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@focusnic.biz.id
    ServerName focusnic.biz.id
    ServerAlias www.focusnic.biz.id
    DocumentRoot /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp/public

    <Directory /var/www/focusnic.biz.id>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/focusnic.biz.id-error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/focusnic.biz.id-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Then create a directory on the virtualhost above:

mkdir -p /var/www/focusnic.biz.id

Restart Apache to save changes:

apachectl configtest
systemctl restart httpd

Create a database by running the following command:

mariadb

Then run the following command to create a database, user, and password:

create database laravel_db;
create user 'laravel_user'@'localhost' identified by 'uKpCZmSAXY9HMu7E';
grant all on laravel_db.* to 'laravel_user'@'localhost';
flush privileges;
quit;

Download composer and install it with the following command:

info

Composer will be needed for Laravel management such as installing dependencies and other requirements during development or production.

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Check composer version:

composer --version

Example output:

Composer version 2.8.10 2025-07-10 19:08:33
PHP version 8.4.10 (/usr/bin/php)

Download the Laravel file and place it in the directory according to the virtual host, we will download Laravel and create a project with the name laravelapp using composer:

cd /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/
composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel laravelapp

Change some parameters in the .env file for database connection in Laravel:

nano /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp/.env

Match the previously created database information including db, username, and password:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel_db
DB_USERNAME=laravel_user
DB_PASSWORD=uKpCZmSAXY9HMu7E

Run the following commands to initialize and migrate the laravelapp project database:

cd /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp
php artisan config:clear
php artisan cache:clear
php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:clear
sudo -u apache php artisan migrate
sudo -u apache php artisan db:seed

Adjust permissions on Laravel directory:

find /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
find /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
chmod -R 775 /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp/storage
chmod -R 775 /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp/bootstrap/cache
chown -R apache:apache /var/www/focusnic.biz.id

Access the Laravel installation through a browser, for example: http://focusnic.biz.id. If the installation is correct and appropriate, the default Laravel page will appear as follows.

Troubleshooting​

  1. 403 Forbidden after installing Laravel

Cause:

  • Directory permissions or ownership are incorrect.
  • SELinux is blocking access to the Laravel directory.

Solution:

Run the following commands to adjust permissions and SELinux:

chown -R apache:apache /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp
chmod -R 755 /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp/storage
  1. 500 Internal Server Error

Cause:

  • The .env file is not configured.
  • The storage/ or bootstrap/cache/ permissions are incorrect.
  • Composer autoload has not been run.

Solution:

Run the following command

cd /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp
php artisan config:clear
php artisan config:cache
chmod -R 775 storage bootstrap/cache
composer install --optimize-autoloader --no-dev
  1. Route or configuration changes not detected

This is because Laravel is still using the old cache. The solution is to clear the cache with the following command:

cd /var/www/focusnic.biz.id/laravelapp
php artisan route:clear
php artisan config:clear
php artisan cache:clear
  1. Error during migration or db:seed

Cause:

  • The database has not been configured correctly in .env
  • The database user does not have access
  • The command was executed by a user other than the web server user

Solution:

Check the contents of .env and ensure they match the database credentials. Use the following command to migrate the database:

sudo -u apache php artisan migrate
sudo -u apache php artisan db:seed

Conclusion​

Through this guide, we have thoroughly discussed how to install the Laravel Framework using the LAMP Stack on AlmaLinux 8, from system configuration and installation of Apache, MariaDB, PHP 8, and Composer, to successfully running Laravel and accessing it through a browser. By following these steps, your server will be ready to develop and run stable and optimal Laravel applications.

Q: Can Laravel run without Composer?
A: No. Composer is Laravel's official dependency manager and is required to install and manage application dependencies.

Q: Are MariaDB and MySQL the same for Laravel?
A: Generally, yes, Laravel supports both. MariaDB is a fork of MySQL and is used by default on AlmaLinux.

Q: When should I run php artisan migrate and db:seed?
A:

  • Run migrate during initial deployment or when adding a new table.
  • Run db:seed if you want to populate initial data (admin, roles, categories, etc.).

Q: How can I make my Laravel more secure in production?
A:

  • Disable debugging in .env (APP_DEBUG=false)
  • Use the minimum permissions required.
  • Enable SSL for traffic encryption.
  • Use firewalls and SELinux properly.

Q: Why use sudo -u apache?
A:

  • Because the files created and used by Laravel must be readable/writable by the apache user.
  • To prevent permission issues (e.g., the storage/logs/laravel.log file cannot be written to).

Further References: