How to Install LEMP Stack on Windows 10 WSL

This post shows how to install LEMP Stack on Windows 10 WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) with Ubuntu 18.04 | 20.04 operating system.

LEMP is a free and open-source Web development platform that used for web application development. It uses Linux as the operating system, Nginx [engine x] as the HTTP Web server, MySQL or MariaDB as the database server and PHP as the object-oriented scripting language. It stands for Linux,  Nginx [engine x] HTTP Server, MySQL or MariaDB database, and PHP programming language.

With the help of WSL, you can easily install full Linux operating system in your Windows 10 system. You just need to enable WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) in your Windows, install a Linux OS, install and run LEMP Stack.

How to Install LEMP Stack on Windows 10 WSL

Simply follow below steps to install LEMP Stack on Windows 10 WSL with Ubuntu OS :

Step 1 : Enable WSL in Windows 10

First of all, you will need to enable WSL in your Windows system. To enable it, simply open PowerShell terminal as administrator.

Click on Start icon -> search for PowerShell -> right-click Windows PowerShell app -> choose to run as administrator.

Next, run the command below in the Windows PowerShell console as show below:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

The command above will display a successful message similar as below:

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.19041.844

Image Version: 10.0.19042.985

Enabling feature(s)
[==========================100.0%==========================]
The operation completed successfully.

Step 2 : Enable Virtual Machine Platform

Run the commands below from the same PowerShell console to enable the Virtual Machine platform in your Windows system:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

If you have Windows 10 version lower than 2004 in your system, use the commands below:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform -NoRestart

Next, restart your computer for changes to apply. If you forget to start then the below command doesn’t work.

After restart of your computer, launch the PowerShell as administrator again and run the commands below to set WSL 2 as the default version of WSL:

wsl --set-default-version 2

Step 3 : Install Ubuntu in Windows 10

At this stage, WSL 2 is installed and ready to be used. So now you can easily install Linux operating(Ubuntu) system in your Windows 10 system.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on Windows WSL allows you to use Ubuntu Terminal and run Ubuntu command line utilities such as bash, ssh, git, apt and many others.

Click the below button to download and install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS from Microsoft Windows store.

Click on the Get button to Download and Install Ubuntu. After installing Ubuntu, launch it from WSL environment.

After launching, it will install and prompt to create your account as show below :

Installing, this may take a few minutes...
Please create a default UNIX user account. The username does not need to match your Windows username.
For more information visit: https://aka.ms/wslusers
Enter new UNIX username: studiesonline
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Installation successful!
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

Welcome to Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.4.0-19041-Microsoft x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

Use some troubleshooting commands when you get issues above. Run the below troubleshooting commands and launch Ubuntu again:

wsl --set-default-version 1
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto start

Step 4 : Prepare Ubuntu

In the LEMP, L stands for Linux and we have already installed Ubuntu in Windows WSL. Next, Run the command below to  manage and update Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt autoremove

Step 5 : Install Nginx HTTP Server

In the LEMP, E stands for Nginx [engine x] HTTP server. Run the commands below to install Nginx HTTP server on Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

Next, you can use the commands below to stop, start and restart Nginx services:

sudo service nginx stop
sudo service nginx start
sudo service nginx restart

For check if Nginx server is installed and working, simply open your browser and type server IP or hostname.

If browser show result similar like below then Nginx is installed and working properly.

http://localhost

Step 6 : Install MariaDB Server

In the LEMP, M stands for MySQL or MariaDB database server. MariaDB database server is an open source, fast and secure database server.

To install MariaDB database server, simply run the commands below:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

Next, run the commands below to stop, start and restart MariaDB service :

sudo service mysql stop
sudo service mysql start
sudo service mysql restart

Now, run the commands below to secure MariaDB server by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When you run the above command, it will prompted to answer the questions as show below:

• Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
• Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
• New password: Enter password
• Re-enter new password: Repeat password
• Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
• Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
• Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]:  Y
• Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]:  Y

For check if MariaDB is installed and working, run the command below:

sudo mysql -u root -p

When prompted, type the root password.

If you see a screen similar as shown below, then the server was successfully installed.

Step 7 : Install PHP and Related Modules

In the LEMP, P stands for PHP. To install PHP and related modules, run the command below:

sudo apt install php-fpm php-common php-mysql php-gmp php-curl php-intl php7.4-mbstring php-xmlrpc php-gd php-xml php-cli php-zip

Next, you can use the command below to stop, start and restart PHP7.4 services:

sudo service php7.4-fpm stop
sudo service php7.4-fpm start
sudo service php7.4-fpm restart

After installing the PHP and related modules, run the commands below to verify that PHP is installed or not :

php -v

Output
PHP 7.4.3 (cli) (built: Oct  6 2020 15:47:56) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.4.3, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

You can also test the PHP installation using a test php script. To do that, create a test PHP file called phpinfo.php in the server’s default home directory using command below.

sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php

Then simply copy and paste the below line into the test file and save it.

<?php phpinfo( ); ?>

Save the file and exit.

Next, open the Nginx default configuration file and Uncomment the highlighted lines. To do that, run the commands below to open Nginx configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Then uncomment the highlighted lines and save the file as show below:

# Default server configuration
#
server {
        listen 80 default_server;
        listen [::]:80 default_server;
        #
        # include snippets/snakeoil.conf;

        root /var/www/html;

        # Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
        index index.php index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

        server_name _;

        location / {
                # First attempt to serve request as file, then
                # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
                try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
        }

        # pass PHP scripts to FastCGI server
        #
        location ~ \.php$ {
               include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        #
        #       # With php-fpm (or other unix sockets):
                fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
        #       # With php-cgi (or other tcp sockets):
        #       fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        }

        # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
        # concurs with nginx's one
        #
        #location ~ /\.ht {
}

Restart the Nginx using command below:

sudo service nginx restart

Next, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address followed by phpinfo.php as show below:

http://example.com/phpinfo.php

When test file is open, you see the PHP default page

That’s all

If you find any error and issue in above steps , please use comment box below to report.