Hosting a PHP Application on AWS Cloud

Hosting a PHP application on AWS involves several steps. Here’s a guide to get you started

Step 1: Set Up an AWS Account

1. Sign Up: Create an AWS account if you don’t have one.

2. IAM User: Create an IAM user with appropriate permissions for security.

Step 2: Launch an EC2 Instance

1. Choose an AMI: Select an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) with your preferred operating system (e.g., Amazon Linux 2).

2. Instance Type: Choose an instance type that meets your application's needs (e.g., t2.micro for small projects).

3. Configure Instance: Configure instance details, such as the number of instances and networking settings.

4. Add Storage: Configure storage as needed.

5. Security Group: Create a security group to allow SSH (port 22) and HTTP/HTTPS (ports 80 and 443) access.

6. Launch: Review and launch the instance. Download the key pair (.pem file) for SSH access.

Step 3: Install Software on EC2

1. Connect to EC2: Use SSH to connect to your instance. ssh -i "your-key.pem" ec2-user@your-instance-public-dns

2. Update Packages:

   sudo yum update -y
   

3. Install Apache:

   sudo yum install httpd -y
   sudo systemctl start httpd
   sudo systemctl enable httpd
   

4. Install PHP:

   sudo amazon-linux-extras install php7.4 -y 
   sudo yum install php php-mysqlnd -y
   sudo systemctl restart httpd
   

Step 4: Deploy Your PHP Application

1. Upload Files: Use SCP or SFTP to upload your PHP files to the EC2 instance.

   scp -i "your-key.pem" -r /path/to/your/php/files ec2-user@your-instance-public-dns:/var/www/html/
   

2. Set Permissions:

   sudo chown -R ec2-user:ec2-user /var/www/html
   sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html
   

Step 5: Configure Your Domain (Optional)

1. Route 53: Use Amazon Route 53 to manage your domain and point it to your EC2 instance.

2. Elastic IP: Allocate an Elastic IP and associate it with your EC2 instance to have a static IP address.

Step 6: Secure Your Application

1. SSL Certificate: Use AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) to request an SSL certificate and configure HTTPS.

2. Firewall Rules: Ensure your security groups are properly configured to restrict access to your instance.

Step 7: Monitor and Scale

1. CloudWatch: Use Amazon CloudWatch to monitor your instance’s performance.

2. Auto Scaling: Configure Auto Scaling groups to handle traffic increases automatically.

By following these steps, you can successfully host a PHP application on AWS, ensuring it is scalable and secure.