Setting up Wordpress

Priliminary Setup

Set hostname

sudo vim /etc/hostname

For example the put the following line as hostname.

myserver

Setup /etc/hosts

sudo vim /etc/hosts

For example the put the following line as hosts.

127.0.0.1 localhost
:: localhost
127.0.1.1 wordpress mywebsite.com

Create New User

sudo useradd -m -g users -G sys,adm -s /bin/bash dev

sudo passwd dev

Add the user to sudo

sudo usermod -aG sudo dev

Wordpress Setup

Install packages

sudo apt install -y mariadb-server apache2 apache2-utils unzip imagemagick libmagickcore-6.q16-6-extra libapache2-mod-php php-imagick php-curl php-gd php-intl php-mbstring php-mysql php-soap php-xml php-zip

• You can also install php-xmlrpc if you need. But it is best to not install this one.

• Check apache2 status.

sudo systemctl status apache2

Setup MariaDB

• Check mariadb status.

sudo systemctl status mariadb # It should be active and running.

• Securing mariadb.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

For the unix_socket authentication we can answer no. That will enable standard authentication and will work just fine.

• Login as database root user.

sudo mariadb -u root -p

• Create new user for wordpress.

CREATE USER 'wordpress'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

• Create a database named db.

CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS db CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

• Check the created database.

SHOW DATABASES;

• Grant priviliges to the new user.

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress_db.* TO 'wordpress'@'localhost';

• Flush and save changes.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

• Quit mariadb.

quit;

Download and Extract WordPress

cd /var/www

sudo wget https://wordpress.org/latest.zip

sudo unzip latest.zip

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data wordpress

Add a configuration file for WordPress to Apache

• Create new .conf file for wordpress.

sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf

• Add the following lines in the .conf file

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/wordpress
    <Directory /var/www/wordpress>
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        DirectoryIndex index.php
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
    <Directory /var/www/wordpress/wp-content>
        Options FollowSymLinks
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

• You can also set AllowOverride Limit Options FileInfo. But that will create some problems when securing the wp-login with apache htpasswd.

• Disable the default site and enable the new wordpress site.

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf

sudo a2ensite wordpress.conf

• Enable some apache modules.

sudo a2enmod rewrite

• Restart apache2.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

After all of that, access your site and then fill out form in the web browser. Then, you’re all set!