Ubuntu Apache Setup for WordPress

On a Fresh Ubuntu 18.04 server, run following commands to setup Apache, PHP and MySQL needed for WordPress installation.

You can go to each file and manually run the commands if you want to see what commands are executed.

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serverok/server-setup/master/ubuntu/1-basic-tools.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serverok/server-setup/master/ubuntu/2-apache-php-mysql.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serverok/server-setup/master/install/update-php-ini.sh
bash ./1-basic-tools.sh
bash ./2-apache-php-mysql.sh
bash ./update-php-ini.sh

At this stage, you have LAMP server setup and ready to go.

To get your domain work with Apache, first you need to point your domain to server IP. This can be done by editing DNS records with your domain registrar or DNS provider.

In commands below, replace

DOMAIN.COM = replace with your actual domain name
USERNAME = you can use any username you wnat, first 8 chars of domain name for example

Create SFTP User

useradd -m --shell /bin/bash --home /home/DOMAIN.COM USERNAME
usermod -aG sudo USERNAME

Set a password for the user. This will be used to login to SFTP

passwd USERNAME

You will be asked to enter password 2 times.

Configure Apache

First lets make Apache run as the user, this will make WordPress upgrade easier.

sed -i "s/www-data/USERNAME/g" /etc/apache2/envvars
chown -R USERNAME:USERNAME /var/lib/php/

Create Apache VirtualHost entry

vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/DOMAIN.COM.conf

Add

    ServerName DOMAIN.COM
    ServerAlias www.DOMAIN.COM
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot /home/DOMAIN.COM/html
    
        Options All
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    

To activate the web site, run

a2ensite DOMAIN.COM

Create document root and set permission

mkdir -p /home/DOMAIN.COM/html
chown -R USERNAME:USERNAME /home/DOMAIN.COM/
chmod -R 755 /home/DOMAIN.COM/html/

Restart Apache

systemctl restart apache2

Create MySQL Database

Login to mysql, on ubuntu, as user root, run

mysql

Now you will be in MySQL command promt, run following 2 commands to create a Database and User.

create database DB_NAME;
grant all on DB_NAME.* to 'DB_USER'@'localhost' identified by 'MYSQL_PASSWORD';

Replace MYSQL_PASSWORD with your own MySQL password. DB_NAME with name of database you need. DB_USER with username for the db.

You will need these when installing WordPress.

Installing LetsEncrypt

First install letsEncrypt with

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serverok/server-setup/master/install/letsencrypt.sh
bash ./letsencrypt.sh

To get SSL for your domain, run

certbot --authenticator webroot --webroot-path /home/DOMAIN.COM/html/ --installer apache --email [email protected] -d DOMAIN.COM -d www.DOMAIN.COM

Replace [email protected] with your actual email address.

Installing WordPress

You can now SFTP/SSH into the server. Upload WordPress into html folder. Make sure you use the newly created USER to do this, if you do it as user root, you will get permission error. Visit the web site, you wil get WordPress install wizzard. Just fill the form to do the install. You will need to enter MySQL login details you created before.

Install WordPress using SSH

First login with SSH user you created with command

ssh USER@SERVER_IP_ADDR

You will be asked to enter password. Enter password you created before.

Download wordpress

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

Extract wordpress files with

tar xvf latest.tar.gz

This will create a folder “wordpress” with the files.

To make the site live, we need to replace folder html with this new wordpress folder

mv html html-old
mv wordpress html

Now you can go to the site, you will see wordpress install screen.

See WordPress