Ubuntu Netbeans and LAMP server with Xdebug as non-root user

25 Replies

In this article I'll show you how to setup Linux Apache Mysql PHP (LAMP) web development environment on Ubuntu Linux with your web site files in your home directory. This way you can easily develop for web as non-root user. If you are trying to install Linux Apache Mysql PHP on Windows, I'll point you to one of my previous articles where I have explained just that:

Apache, MySQL, PHP server on Windows

My goals for this session are to install Apache, MySQL and PHP with Xdebug module for PHP development debugging. We will setup Xdebug and use it with Netbeans, but once Xdebug is properly installed, you can debug your applications with any other application like Eclipse. The most important thing for a web developer or web programmer is to be able to easily modify his web development files without becoming root for everything he is working on. I will show you how to instruct Apache to make virtual host in your home directory. At the end of it all I will install Netbeans and create sample project to work with our new development environment. So lets get started...

First thing we need to do is to install Linux Apache Mysql PHP server. In Debian based Linux distribution this is easily done using tasksel to select all necessary packages for typical Linux Apache Mysql PHP server. So lets install tasksel program first. Type this at your terminal:

sudo apt-get install tasksel

Next thing is to use tasksel to install Linux Apache Mysql PHP server. We do this this way:

sudo tasksel install lamp-server

In the middle of Linux Apache Mysql PHP installation, tasksel will ask you for MySQL root password. It is very important to write down what you gave to tasksel, because this password will be used to access MySQL database. After Linux Apache Mysql PHP installation is over, we will install Xdebug and one of the PHP image manipulation modules any web developer will need in his work, namely GD library. While we're working with apt-get, we will install Netbeans from Ubuntu repository. Here's the command to do this:

sudo apt-get install php5-xdebug php5-gd netbeans

I usually use directory "public_html" inside my home to keep all of my web sites code. You can use whatever directory inside you home you want. Important thing to mention is that Ubuntu web server is started as user "www-data" and directory where we keep our web source code should be accessible and writable by this user. So we will designate "www-data" as the owner of "public_html" directory. What's important for us is that we, as users have same permissions like our web servers "www-data" user for "public_html" directory so we could freely do our work. We will accomplish this by adding our selves to the "www-data" group. Now lets create "public_html" directory, adjust its permissions and add our selves to the "www-data" group:

mkdir /home/$USER/public_html
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /home/$USER/public_html
sudo chmod -R 775 /home/$USER/public_html
sudo adduser $USER www-data

Now after we have our "public_html" folder in place, we will adjust Apache setting so that "public_html" is used as web server document root. This way when we go to "localhost" or "127.0.0.1" server serves files from "/home/$USER/public_html". We will copy default web site template and modify it:

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default /etc/apache2/sites-available/public_html

Now we need to edit new web site template to point to "/home/$USER/public_html" instead of default "/var/www". Lets open our new template for editing:

gksudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/public_html

We need to modify two lines: "DocumentRoot" from "/var/www" to "/home/username/public_html" and location of the second "Directory" section from "/var/www/" to "/home/username/public_html/". Notice the extra "/" on the "Directory" definition when compared to "DocumentRoot", this is on purpose. Instead of "usensame" put you own username. Everything else should be left as it were.

Here's the example of our modified file on my Ubuntu PC. Instead of "marko" in this file you must put your own username:

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
 
	DocumentRoot /home/marko/public_html
	<Directory />
		Options FollowSymLinks
		AllowOverride None
	</Directory>
	<Directory /home/marko/public_html/>
		Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
		AllowOverride None
		Order allow,deny
		allow from all
	</Directory>
 
	ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
	<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
		AllowOverride None
		Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
		Order allow,deny
		Allow from all
	</Directory>
 
	ErrorLog /home/marko/public_html/error.log
 
	# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
	# alert, emerg.
	LogLevel warn
 
	CustomLog /home/marko/public_html/access.log combined
 
    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>
 
</VirtualHost>

Now we can disable Ubuntu default "/var/www"site and enable our new "public_html" site:

sudo a2dissite default
sudo a2ensite public_html

What's left is to adjust Xdebug settings to allow debugging. We need to append to Xdebug configuration file:

For older Ubuntu (Debian) versions:

gksudo gedit /etc/php5/conf.d/xdebug.ini

For recent Ubuntu (Debian) versions:

gksudo gedit /etc/php5/mods-available/xdebug.ini

We will add this at the bottom of "/etc/php5/conf.d/xdebug.ini":

xdebug.remote_enable=on
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.remote_host=localhost
xdebug.remote_port=9000

HERE's the example of old Xdebug configuration file, and HERE's the example of our modified file.

Now we restart Apache server to apply our new settings:

sudo service apache2 restart

The last thing to do is to setup Netbeans with project inside our new "public_html" directory. Because we added our selves to the "www-data" user group, we should restart our PC now to make sure everything is refreshed properly. Next we start Netbeans from Applications -> Programming -> Netbeans and create new project by going to the File -> New Project. In the dialog we select PHP from the left side and "PHP Application" from the right side.

On the next screen you should configure things like this if you want your project to be called "techytalk":

Netbeans New PHP Project - selecting name and location

After you click "next" you will be presented with the screen for run configuration. "Run As" should be set to "Local web site" and "Project URL" to "http://localhost/techytalk/". Leave the checkbox unchecked and click next two times.

Now you are presented with index.php inside Netbeans IDE and you can start creating your new web site. You can go to Run -> Run Project to show your web site in your browser or Debug -> Debug project to debug it. When you choose debug you will be given an opportunity to go trough your PHP code line by line and watch state of variables change at the bottom of Netbeans window on "Variables" tab.

This guide is a bit longer so there are many places for both of us to make mistake. So if something doesn't work, comment here (you don't need to register) and I'll do my best to help you out.

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25 thoughts on “Ubuntu Netbeans and LAMP server with Xdebug as non-root user”

Neville Cox July 30, 2011 at 11:17:46

Marko
Where you have typed this
mkdir /home/$USER/public_html
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /home/$USER/public_html
sudo chmod -R 775 /home/$USER/public_html
sudo adduser $USER www-data
Do you replace the $USER with user name, as I have typed it in as $USER

Nev

Reply ↓
Marko AuthorJuly 30, 2011 at 11:30:10

The $USER variable will be automatically replaced with your user name. I must write instructions that work no mater how user name is so I use built in shell environment variable $USER.

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Ziku September 27, 2011 at 18:28:35

When I put my file_name.php file in public_html folder it works….
but when I’m creating a new project in netbeans, new project in creating in a new folder (same as my project name). when I’m using the run command it won’t work and gives me the following error :

Not Found
The requested URL /public_html/Test/index.php was not found on this server.

What should i do now ?

Reply ↓
1. Marko AuthorSeptember 28, 2011 at 00:43:26
  Hello,
  this is probably about permissions, try following:
  sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /home/$USER/public_html sudo chmod -R 777 /home/$USER/public_html
  I have bash script in my /home/$USER/bin that does this from time to time. God luck!
  Reply ↓
  1. Ziku September 29, 2011 at 17:39:31
    
    Thanks for your kind replay…..
    
    Reply ↓
    1. Ziku September 29, 2011 at 17:41:55
      
      How can I use a bash script like you…
      
      Reply ↓
      1. Marko AuthorOctober 1, 2011 at 15:04:56
        
        Just create file ph_script.sh place it inside /home/$USER/bin and put following in it:
        
        #!/bin/bash sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /home/$USER/public_html sudo chmod -R 777 /home/$USER/public_html
        
        then you can call it manually from your terminal like this:
        
        ph_script.sh
        
        Or you can put it to start at boot, use crontab to start it periodically. Alternatively you can also use ACL to modify the default ownership and permission on files created in specific directory but that’s more advanced, I didn’t have time to explore this in detail.
        
        Reply ↓
        
        Ziku October 10, 2011 at 03:05:14
        
        Thank you very much,,, It works for me….
        
        Reply ↓
Ujjal November 14, 2011 at 21:04:38

I have installed LAMP and netbeans on Linux 11.
Now I want to make public_html as localhost.
I have followed your steps from this command
sudo apt-get install php5-xdebug php5-gd

But its not working. When I hit localhost/info.php
it says Error 403
Forbidden

You don’t have permission to access /ujjal on this server.
Apache/2.2.17 (Ubuntu) Server at localhost Port 80

help me please

Reply ↓
Ujjal November 14, 2011 at 21:05:28

*Linux MInt 11

Reply ↓
1. Marko AuthorNovember 14, 2011 at 21:13:11
  
  Hello Ujjal,
  did you replace /home/marko/public_html with /home/YOUR_LOGIN_NAME/public_html in two places inside /etc/apache2/sites-available/public_html? Also you must run those chmod and chown commands from this guide? Did you restart apache using sudo service apache2 restart?
  
  Reply ↓
  1. Ujjal November 14, 2011 at 21:30:50
    
    Yes,I have done evrything as you mentioned.
    
    N,B: hitting on localhost/phpmyadmin is working fine.
    
    Help
    
    Reply ↓
  2. Ujjal November 14, 2011 at 21:34:08
    
    What did you meant by “YOUR LOGIN NAME”?
    
    My user name is “UJJAL SUTTRA DHAR”
    But home folder name is “ujjal”
    
    Reply ↓
    1. Carlos April 10, 2015 at 02:41:06
      
      Fixed the problem replacing
      Order allow,deny allow from all
      
      with
      
      Require all granted
      
      which I copied from the original .conf file.
      
      Thanks for the great article!
      
      Reply ↓
alan December 29, 2011 at 14:07:26

I have followed your instructions until The last thing to do is to setup Netbeans with project inside our new “public_html” directory. Because we added our selves to the “www-data” user group, we should restart our PC now to make sure everything is refreshed properly. Next we start Netbeans from Applications -> Programming -> Netbeans and create new project by going to the File -> New Project. In the dialog we select PHP from the left side and “PHP Application” from the right side.

On the next screen you should configure things like this if you want your project to be called “techytalk”:

But, I don’t see PHP in New Project. All I can see is:
Java
Netbeans Modules
Samples

this is all in the left Window.
How do I find the PHP?
thanks Alan

Reply ↓
1. Marko AuthorDecember 29, 2011 at 15:21:58
  
  Hello,
  Netbeans can be used to develop for many technologies besides PHP so you must ensure you have its PHP plugin installed. Just go to Tools ->Plugins->Available plugins and search for PHP and click install. After your restart Netbeans you’ll have PHP for new project. Also you should consider two things. One, to install latest Netbeans with PHP plugin included from here, download PHP version. Do chmod +x downloaded_file and then ./downloaded_file if you want to install somewhere in your home folder for you only or sudo ./downloaded_file if you want to install globally for all users. Second thing is that better and simpler way to do things described in this article is to use userdir Apache module (I’ll change this article to use this way when I find time). I wrote separate article on enable user dir apache module topic, it’s all explained there.
  
  Best regards,
  Marko
  
  Reply ↓
Tex December 30, 2011 at 19:05:28

Hi,

many thanks for the guide, it seems all correct but I always receive a 403 Forbidden message…

I’ve executed the following steps:

echo $USER
tex

mkdir /home/$USER/public_html
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /home/$USER/public_html
sudo chmod -R 775 /home/$USER/public_html
sudo adduser $USER www-data

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default /etc/apache2/sites-available/public_html

the content of /etc/apache2/sites-available/public_html is this:

ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /home/tex/public_html

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/

AllowOverride None
Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
Alias /doc/ “/usr/share/doc/”

Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128

sudo a2dissite default
sudo a2ensite public_html

then reboot my linux box (ubuntu 11.04)

I’ve created a folder and index.php file under public_html

mkdir public_html/test
gedit public_html/test/index.php

content of public_html/test/index.php

run again:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /home/$USER/public_html
sudo chmod -R 775 /home/$USER/public_html

Point the browser on http://localhost/test/index.php and I receive 403 Forbidden: why ?

Notice that http://localhost/phpmyadmin works well…

Can you help me please ?

Reply ↓
1. Marko AuthorDecember 30, 2011 at 20:05:01
  
  Hello. Looks like WP comment system chewed up some of the code you’ve posted. You should place code inside code tags to avoid this. First thing I would try is to access using 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost because that is what you’ve specified in Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128 line. Also you can consider adjusting access settings using gufw (firewall) on your PC and using standard allow from all for apache configuration. Good luck!
  
  Reply ↓
Mehmet Tayyar January 7, 2012 at 18:45:46

Hi I have trouble .. I did everthing you said and everything ok.However if I run index.php it locates /home/user/public_html/project browser saves php file ,not run how can I solve it … thanks

Reply ↓
Ilo March 13, 2013 at 09:11:16

All this worked from me like a charm. Thanks Marko.

Reply ↓
jose serrano April 22, 2013 at 18:31:42

Hello maybe i sound ***** but i am new in coding and i love linux mint 14 nadia. after all the steps that you given me i just don’t no where to( or how to find “Document root” to change the username and after that i don’t no how to find the netbean server to start coding php. I hope you bear with me be cos i am a newbie but! all the steps that you gave me were done very correctly.
I hope i haven’t wasted your time.

Thank you.

Reply ↓
Frank Martin November 30, 2013 at 09:20:13

Very Informative tutorial,
i am faving an issue.
using Linux mint 14, all went smooth but wheni try to creat a new projet Neatbeans stuck on loading. i have a working JR6. can u help what is the issue?

Reply ↓
Bhanu June 19, 2014 at 21:26:51

Dear Marko,
Good day to you!!

i have ubuntu 14.04 installed netbeans then lamp
i got error below:
Not Found

The requested URL /MyFirstPHP/index.php was not found on this server.
Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) Server at localhost Port 80

but i have created a file named testphp.php on /var/www/html
thats running well what must i do to run my netbeans php application.
Thanks in advanced..
https://twitter.com/bpsingh2013

Reply ↓
motiur rahman October 23, 2014 at 03:14:35

sudo a2dissite default
sudo a2ensite public_html

Every thing is ok but I did not run this two command. So my project do not run.Please help

Thnaks.

Reply ↓
Guillermo February 6, 2015 at 15:29:36

First at all, thank you Marko for your article. Just one comment for those people, like me, that are quite new in Debian. I followed the steps and it wouldn’t work… I wondered “What the…”, so I spent like two days browsing the web… finally the permissions of your home folder (in my case “/home/guille”) by default are 700. So no one except you can read anything inside. Just “sudo chmod 755 /home/yourusername”. I hope help someone. Cheers 🙂

Reply ↓