WordPress is a powerful and versatile content management system (CMS) that enables users to build and manage websites efficiently. Hosting WordPress on a cloud instance such as AWS EC2 or a local VirtualBox VM ensures flexibility, scalability, and control over your website. This guide walks you through setting up WordPress on a fresh VM, configuring a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), and ensuring the configurations for a fully functional WordPress website.

1. Create a Virtual Machine

create a VM on AWS EC2, VirtualBox, or VMware as per your requirements.

Update the server packages to the latest version

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Set hostname as per your naming conventions

hostnamectl set-hostname ns-site1-vm

2. Install Apache Web Server

Apache is the web server that will serve your WordPress site. We need to install and enable it to run automatically when the system starts.

Install the latest version of the Apache web server

sudo apt install apache2

Enable and start the Apache Server

sudo systemctl enable apache2
sudo systemctl start apache2

3. Install PHP and Required Plugins

PHP is the scripting language required for WordPress to function. We also install necessary extensions that WordPress relies on.

To install the latest version of PHP and its extensions on Ubuntu, follow these steps:

Add the Repository (For Latest PHP Versions)

sudo apt install software-properties-common ca-certificates lsb-release apt-transport-https -y
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php -y
sudo apt update

Install PHP Version 8.0 for better compatibility with WordPress.
You can refer to the documentation

sudo apt install php8.0 php8.0-cli php8.0-common php8.0-mysql php8.0-curl php8.0-gd php8.0-intl \
php8.0-mbstring php8.0-soap php8.0-xml php8.0-xmlrpc php8.0-zip libapache2-mod-php8.0 -y

Verify Installation

php -v

This should display the installed PHP version.

4. Install and Configure MySQL

MySQL is the database management system that stores all of WordPress's data, including posts, users, and settings.

Install MySQL server:

sudo apt install mysql-server

Enable and start the MYSQL server

sudo systemctl enable mysql.service
sudo systemctl start mysql.service

Do MySQL secure installation

mysql_secure_installation

Create a new user with restricted permissions for security

To access your MySQL prompt, use the below command

mysql -u root -p

First, we need to create a database that will be restricted to the specific user only

CREATE DATABASE site1_ns_db;

Create a user

CREATE USER 'site1_ns_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY '@MySecurePass123';

When creating a new user with CREATE USER, you provide a username followed by an @ symbol and the hostname from which the user will connect.
Change <password> with your desired password.

Grant Privileges to the User for the database we created

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON site1_ns_db.* TO 'site1_ns_user'@'localhost';

Apply Changes

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Verify the Privileges

SHOW GRANTS FOR 'site1_ns_user'@'localhost';

5. Install and Configure WordPress

We are deploying WordPress, a content management system (CMS). This step involves downloading and configuring WordPress to work with our web server and database.

You can create a separate directory for WordPress if needed. Recommended installation path: /var/www/html/yoursite

mkdir -p /var/www/html/ns.site1.com

Set the correct ownership and permissions

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/ns.site1.com/public_html
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/ns.site1.com/public_html

Download WordPress

cd /var/www/html/ns.site1.com
wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Unzip the package

tar -xvf latest.tar.gz

Change the name of the WordPress directory to public_html

mv wordpress public_html

Update the WordPress configuration file

cd /var/www/html/ns.site1.com/public_html
nano wp-config.php

Modify the database settings in wp-config.php to match your MySQL setup.

6. Configure Apache Virtual Host

A virtual host is required to tell Apache how to serve your WordPress site. This configuration ensures that requests to your domain or IP address are properly handled.

Navigate to the Apache configuration directory:

cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

First, delete the default configuration files that are already there:

sudo rm /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/*

To store the log files for Apache, we’ll be creating a separate directory and files

mkdir -p /var/log/apache2/site1.ns.com/
sudo touch /var/log/apache2/site1.ns.com/error.log
sudo touch /var/log/apache2/site1.ns.com/access.log

Create a new configuration file

sudo vi ns-site1.com.conf

Refer to the following configuration

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
   DocumentRoot /var/log/apache2/site1.ns.com/public_html
   ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/site1.ns.com/error.log
   CustomLog /var/log/apache2/site1.ns.com/access.log combined
   <Directory </var/log/apache2/site1.ns.com/public_html>
       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
       AllowOverride All
       Require all granted
   </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

To enable the config, use the soft link

ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/ns-site1.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ns-site1.com.conf
sudo a2ensite example

Check that the configuration is correct

apache2ctl -t

Enable necessary Apache modules

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod proxy
sudo a2enmod proxy_http

Set up Apache server timezone to Asia/Kolkata

sudo timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Kolkata
timedatectl

Configure Apache to Use the System Time zone

SetEnv TZ Asia/Kolkata

Restart Apache

sudo systemctl restart apache2

8. Additional Configuration

Access the WordPress setup page from a web browser

Additionally, you can set up a local domain to access
The host file is where you can map domain names to IP addresses. This file exists on both Linux and Windows systems.

Edit the host file

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Add a line that maps your local domain to your server’s IP

<VM ip>   ns-site1.com

Modify the Apache configuration file

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
   DocumentRoot /var/log/apache2/ns-site1.com/public_html
    ServerName ns-site1.com #Add ServerName
   ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/ns-site1.com/error.log
   CustomLog /var/log/apache2/ns-site1.com/access.log combined
   <Directory <Wordpress installation path>>
       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
       AllowOverride All
       Require all granted
   </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Enable the Site and Restart Apache

sudo a2ensite ns-site1.com.conf
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Try to access it by using the DNS you mapped to your server’s IP

Step 5: Install SSL using Certbot

If you are using any DNS, you can secure your site by installing SSL using certbot

1. Install Certbot

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache -y

2. Generate an SSL certificate

sudo certbot --apache -d ns-site1.com

Conclusion

By following this guide, you have successfully hosted a WordPress website on an EC2 instance or a VirtualBox VM. Your LAMP stack is fully configured, and your WordPress installation is ready for use. You can now access the WordPress setup page from a web browser and proceed with site configuration.

This setup provides you with complete control over your WordPress hosting, allowing for scalability, customization, and enhanced security.

Happy Hosting!