Deploying WordPress

Deploying wordpress¶

create an instance¶

Follow the "Getting Started" instructions here to create an Ubuntu instance, keypair, security group, and to connect to your instance using SSH.
Create an instance that fits your website's resource demand. For this example, we will use a small instance (ec1.small with 20GB). Depending on the number of concurrent visitors, this is sufficient for most small/medium websites.
For your Security groups, the ports used by WordPress are 80 & 443 (http & https)
Create a DNS A record to point your domain to your assigned IP, this might take some time and is needed later for SSL/HTTPS

setting up requirements¶

update your instance

sudo apt update &&
sudo apt -y upgrade && 
sudo apt -y dist-upgrade &&
sudo apt -y autoremove &&
sudo apt -y autoclean &&
sudo snap refresh

Download requirements

sudo apt install -y apache2 mysql-server php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-xmlrpc php-soap php-intl php-zip

reboot your instance (in case of kernel changes) sudo reboot
ssh back into your instance

Create an SQL database¶

set a root password for mysql

sudo mysql

replace "my_supersecure_pwd" with your preferred pasword

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'my_supersecure_pwd';

exit mysql:
```
exit;
```
run the secure installation procedure:
```
sudo mysql_secure_installation
```
enter the root password you set before (excluding the '')
Choose wether you want the 'VALIDATE PASSWORD COMPONENT' this is adviced, however for this tutorial we choose not to enable it
Choose whether you want to keep or change the root password
Choose 'Y' to remove the anonymous user
Since you are connecting over SSH choose 'N' for disallowing remote root login
Choose 'Y' for removing the test database
And a final 'Y' to reload the privilege tables
login to mysql:
```
mysql -u root -p
```
create a database for your site, replacing 'MY_WEBSITE' with your preferred database name
```
CREATE DATABASE MY_WEBSITE DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
```
create a separate mysql user & user password by replacing "MY_USER" and "MY_PWD"
```
CREATE USER 'MY_USER'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'MY_PWD';
```
Grant your new user access to your database, make sure you replace the fields
```
GRANT ALL ON MY_WEBSITE.* TO 'MY_USER'@'%';
```
apply privileges and exit mysql:
```
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

exit;
```

Configure apache2¶

enable your site in apache2

a2ensite 000-default

enable the rewrite module

sudo a2enmod rewrite

restart apache2

sudo systemctl restart apache2

download wordpress¶

go to your temporary folder
```
cd /tmp
```

download wordpress

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

extract the package
```
tar xzvf latest.tar.gz
```

create some files and folders to avoid permission issues later

touch /tmp/wordpress/.htaccess
cp /tmp/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php /tmp/wordpress/wp-config.php

mkdir /tmp/wordpress/wp-content/upgrade

copy the wordpress folder to your webroot

sudo cp -a /tmp/wordpress/. /var/www/html

change ownership of your webroot to the 'www-data' user and group
```
sudo chown -R -v www-data:www-data /var/www/html
```
use the wordpress keygen to create some secure keys for your config file by opening the following page in your browser:
```
https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/
```
copy these keys & edit the config file
```
sudo nano /var/www/html/wp-config.php
```
Scroll down until you find the example keys. Remove the examples and copy your newly generated ones in their place.

Now scroll up until you find the 'Database settings' section and fill in the variables you entered earlier in the mysql section of this tutorial

define( 'DB_NAME', 'MY_WEBSITE' );

/** Database username */
define( 'DB_USER', 'MY_USER' );

/** Database password */
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'MY_PWD' );

Close the config file with 'ctrl+x' followed by 'y' and 'enter'
remove the apache2 default index file
```
sudo rm /var/www/html/index.html
```

finish wordpress installation¶

in your browser visit your URL and follow the installation steps

Get a certificate¶

in your SSH session install certbot
```
sudo snap install --classic certbot
```

make sure certbot can work outside it's snap

sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot

get a certificate by running this command and following the steps
```
sudo certbot --apache
```

Finished!¶

Your wordpress site is now fully operational and can be reached at https://yourdomain