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In less than a minute, spin up a cloud server with Apache, MySQL, and PHP installed.

Software Included

Creating an App using the Control Panel

Click the Deploy to DigitalOcean button to create a Droplet based on this 1-Click App. If you aren’t logged in, this link will prompt you to log in with your DigitalOcean account.

Creating an App using the API

In addition to creating a Droplet from the LAMP 1-Click App using the control panel, you can also use the DigitalOcean API. As an example, to create a 4GB LAMP Droplet in the SFO2 region, you can use the following curl command. You need to either save your API access token to an environment variable or substitute it in the command below.

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
         -H 'Authorization: Bearer '$TOKEN'' -d \
        '{"name":"choose_a_name","region":"sfo2","size":"s-2vcpu-4gb","image":"lamp-20-04"}' \
        "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets"

Getting Started After Deploying LAMP

LAMP 1-Click

Deploy a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) on Ubuntu 24.04. By default, MySQL runs locally on the Droplet. You can optionally attach a DigitalOcean Managed MySQL database during deployment.

Getting Started

1. Select the LAMP 1-Click from the DigitalOcean Marketplace
2. Choose a Droplet size and region
3. Optionally select Add a Database to provision a Managed MySQL database (see below)
4. Create the Droplet

What’s Included

In addition to the package installation, the 1-Click also:

• Enables the UFW firewall to allow only SSH (port 22, rate limited), HTTP (port 80), and HTTPS (port 443) access
• Sets the MySQL root password and runs mysql_secure_installation
• Sets up the debian-sys-maint user in MySQL so the system’s init scripts for MySQL will work without requiring the MySQL root user password

After You Create the Droplet

• You can view the LAMP instance immediately by visiting the Droplet’s IP address in your browser (http://your-droplet-ip)
• You can log into the Droplet as root using either the password you set when you created the Droplet or with an SSH key, if you added one during creation
• The MySQL root password is in /root/.digitalocean_password (when using the local MySQL instance)
• The web root is /var/www/html
• You can get information about the PHP installation by logging into the Droplet and running php -i

A newly-created LAMP Droplet includes an index.html web page in the web root. You can replace it by uploading a custom index.html file or remove it.

Apache Virtual Hosts

Creating an Apache virtual hosts file for each site maintains the default configuration as the fallback, as intended, and makes it easier to manage changes when hosting multiple sites.

To do so, you’ll need to create two things for each domain:

• A new directory in /var/www for that domain’s content
• A new virtual host file in /etc/apache2/sites-available for that domain’s configuration

For a detailed walkthrough, see How to Set Up Apache Virtual Hosts.

Setting Up SSL with Certbot

Setting up an SSL certificate enables HTTPS on the web server, which secures the traffic between the server and the clients connecting to it. Certbot is preinstalled on the LAMP 1-Click to make securing the Droplet easier.

To use Certbot, you’ll need a registered domain name and two DNS records:

• An A record from a domain (e.g., example.com) to the server’s IP address
• An A record from a domain prefaced with www (e.g., www.example.com) to the server’s IP address

Additionally, if you are using a virtual hosts file, make sure the ServerName directive in the VirtualHost block (e.g., ServerName example.com) is correctly set to the domain.

Once the DNS records and, optionally, the virtual hosts files are set up, generate the SSL certificate. Substitute your domain in the command:

certbot --apache -d example.com -d www.example.com

HTTPS traffic on port 443 is already allowed through the firewall. After you set up HTTPS, you can optionally deny HTTP traffic on port 80:

ufw delete allow 80/tcp

For more detail, see How to Secure Apache with Let’s Encrypt or Certbot’s official documentation.

Serving Files

You can serve files from the web server by adding them to the web root (/var/www/html) using SFTP or other tools.

Using a DigitalOcean Managed Database (Optional)

When creating your LAMP Droplet, you can select Add a Database to provision a DigitalOcean Managed MySQL database at the same time. A managed database replaces the local MySQL instance to better secure your data and gives you easy backups, connection pools, and metrics.

What happens when you add a database

When you choose this option during Droplet creation, DigitalOcean:

1. Provisions a Managed MySQL cluster in the same region as your Droplet
2. Passes connection credentials to your Droplet at first boot in /root/.digitalocean_dbaas_credentials
3. Exposes a DATABASE_URL environment variable with the database connection string

The Droplet waits for the Managed Database to become available, then stops and disables the local MySQL instance. You configure your PHP application to use the managed cluster — LAMP does not auto-wire a specific app.

Security: Trusted Sources

Your Droplet is not automatically added to the Managed Database’s trusted sources. For better security, add your Droplet’s public IP address to the database cluster’s Trusted Sources in the DigitalOcean control panel:

1. Open your database cluster in the control panel
2. Go to Settings → Trusted Sources
3. Add your Droplet’s public IP address

Modifying database settings later

• Connection credentials: /root/.digitalocean_dbaas_credentials or the DATABASE_URL environment variable
• Local MySQL (default): root password in /root/.digitalocean_password
• PHP apps: Update your application’s database configuration to use the managed host, port, username, password, and SSL as required by Managed MySQL

Droplet Summary

• UFW firewall allows SSH (port 22, rate limited), HTTP (port 80), and HTTPS (port 443)
• Apache serves content from /var/www/html
• Local MySQL root password: /root/.digitalocean_password
• Managed MySQL credentials: /root/.digitalocean_dbaas_credentials and DATABASE_URL (when Add a Database was selected)
• Apache config: /etc/apache2/
• Certbot is preinstalled for HTTPS setup