View source for Debian stable Web Server step-by-step

== Configure php.ini ==
Configuring PHP.ini (note: for Ubuntu rather than debian, the path is probably /etc/php5/cgi rather than /etc/php5/apache2)
 cp /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini /etc/php5/apache2/orig-php.ini
 editor /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
... and make these changes:

 - ;date.timezone =
 + date.timezone = Australia/Sydney
 
 # hide PHP in the headers
 - expose_php = On
 + expose_php = Off
 
 - max_execution_time = 30
 + max_execution_time = 300 ; Equals 5 mins
  
 - upload_max_filesize = 2M
 + upload_max_filesize = 10M
 
 - allow_url_fopen = On
 + allow_url_fopen = 0

Then need to restart apache for changes to take effect:
 /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

Then soft-link the command line php.ini to the apache php.ini, so that they can have a shared configuration:
 # diff -u --ignore-all-space /etc/php5/cli/php.ini /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
 mv /etc/php5/cli/php.ini /etc/php5/cli/php.ini-orig
 ln -s /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini /etc/php5/cli/php.ini
 ls -al /etc/php5/cli/php.ini