Wordpress Installation and Configuration Guide.

Prerequisites

Create a MySQL Database and User for WordPress

Log in to a MySQL administrative account (root):

sudo mysql -u root -p

Create wordpress database:

CREATE DATABASE wordpress DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;

Create exclusive user for this database:

GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO 'wordpressuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

Flush the privileges so that the current instance of MySQL knows about the recent changes:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit the MySQL shell:

exit

Installing Additional PHP Extensions

Install some of the most popular PHP extensions for use with WordPress:

sudo apt install php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-xmlrpc php-soap php-intl php-zip

Adjusting Apaches Configuration to Allow for .htaccess Overrides and Rewrites

Enabling .htaccess Overrides

Create a configuration file in /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory, that will allow .htacess files in /var/www/wordpress (it will be the root directory of our wordpress installation):

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

And add the following, changing the fields with yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com:

<VirtualHost *:80>

	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
	DocumentRoot /var/www/wordpress
	ServerName yourdomain.com
	ServerAlias www.yourdomain.com

	<Directory /var/www/wordpress/>
		AllowOverride All
	</Directory>

	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

The Directory tag allows .htacess files and the VirtualHost tag, creates a virtual host to be able to host multiple domains from a single server.

When you are finished, save and close the file.

Enabling the Rewrite Module

Next, we can enable mod_rewrite so that we can utilize the WordPress permalink feature

sudo a2enmod rewrite

Enabling the file

sudo a2ensite wordpress.conf

Disabling the default site

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf

Enabling the Changes

Make sure we don’t have syntax errors:

sudo apache2ctl configtest

If the output has a AH00558 message ignore it. We only care about the SYNTAX OK message.

Restart Apache

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Downloading WordPress

Download latest version:

cd ~/Downloads
curl -O https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Extract the compressed file:

tar xzvf latest.tar.gz

Cd in the extracted directory:

cd wordpress

Create a dummy .htaccess file:

touch .htacess

Copy over the sample configuration file to the filename that WordPress actually reads:

cp wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php

Create the following directory so as to not have permission issues later:

mkdir wp-content/upgrade

Cd out of the wordpress folder:

cd ..

Copy the entire contents of the directory into our document root:

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

Configuring the WordPress Directory

Adjusting the Ownership and Permissions

Give ownership of all the files to the www-data user and group (the user apache runs as):

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

We run two find commands to set the correct permissions on the WordPress directories and files:

sudo find /var/www/wordpress/ -type d -exec chmod 750 {} \;
sudo find /var/www/wordpress/ -type f -exec chmod 640 {} \;

Setting up the WordPress Configuration File

For the initial configuration, it requires the WordPress salt to be generated. This can be done using:

curl -s https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/

It will give a different output every time and will contain a list of salt values. The output of the above command needs to be copied and added to the wp-config.php file.

Open wp-config.php:

sudo vim /var/www/wordpress/wp-config.php

Replace all the dummy values with the ones from the previous command. Below are the dummy values from wp-config.php to be replaced:

define( 'AUTH_KEY',         'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'NONCE_KEY',        'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'AUTH_SALT',        'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'LOGGED_IN_SALT',   'put your unique phrase here' );
define( 'NONCE_SALT',       'put your unique phrase here' );

The wp-config.php file contains some Database configuration at the top. Replace the DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD with values you have created for WordPress:

define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress');

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'wordpressuser');

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password');

Also, you can add the file system method at the very bottom of the others:

define('FS_METHOD', 'direct');

Now the server configuration is complete! We can complete the installation through the web interface.

In your web browser, navigate to your servers domain name or public IP address:

https://server_domain_or_IP