How to Install WordPress on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 with Nginx and Let’s Encrypt

If you’re a student of a new user who want to learn how to install WordPress on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 with Nginx HTTP support and Let’s Encrypt, then this post is for you.

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install WordPress on Ubuntu 18.04 | 20.04 with Nginx HTTP Server and Let’s Encrypt wildcard SSL Certificates.

WordPress, a free and open source content management system that is installed on more servers than any other CMS, is easy to install and manage.

When you’re looking for a CMS to run your content online, WordPress should probably be a starting point for you. And if you want to learn how to easily install and mange it, then this post is all you need.

For more about WordPress, please check their Homepage

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server

WordPress requires a web server to function, and Nginx is one of the most popular opensource web server available today.

To install Nginx on Ubuntu, run the commands below:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Nginx service to always start up with the server boots.

sudo systemctl stop nginx.service
sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

To test whether Nginx is installed and functioning, open your web browser and browse to the server’s IP address or hostname.

http://localhost

If you see the above page in your browser, then Nginx is working as expected.

Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server

You’ll also need a database server to run WordPress. A database server is where WordPress content get stored.

A true open source database server that you can use with WordPress is MariaDB database server. It is fast, secure and the default server for almost all Linux servers.

To install MariaDB, run the commands below:

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to always start up when the server boots.

sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

Next, run the commands below to secure the database server with a root password if you were not prompted to do so during the installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
New password: Enter password
Re-enter new password: Repeat password
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y

To verify and validate that MariaDB is installed and working, login to the database console using the commands below:

sudo mysql -u root -p

type the root password when prompted.

If you see a similar screen as shown above, then the server was successfully installed.

Step 3: Install PHP 7.4 and Related Modules

WordPress is a PHP based application, and PHP is required to run it. Since some versions of Ubuntu don’t have the latest version of PHP, you can add a third-party PPA repository to install PHP from there.

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.4

sudo apt update

Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.4 and related modules.

sudo apt install php7.4-fpm php7.4-common php7.4-mysql php7.4-gmp php7.4-curl php7.4-intl php7.4-mbstring php7.4-xmlrpc php7.4-gd php7.4-xml php7.4-cli php7.4-zip

After installing PHP 7.4, go and configure some basic settings that may be required for WordPress to function properly.

Run the commands below to open PHP

sudo nano /etc/php/7.4/fpm/php.ini

Below are good settings to configure for most WordPress websites.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

That should get PHP 7.4 installed with some basic settings to allow WordPress to function.

Step 4: Create WordPress Database

When all the servers installed above, it’s now time to begin setting up WordPress environment. First, run the steps below to create a blank database for WordPress to use.

Logon to MariaDB database console using the commands below:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called wpdb

CREATE DATABASE wpdb;

Next, create a database user called wpdbuser and set password

CREATE USER 'wpdbuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON wpdb.* TO 'wpdbuser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 5: Download WordPress

At this point, WordPress is ready to be downloaded and installed. Use the commands below to download the latest version of WordPress.

cd /tmp
wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xvzf latest.tar.gz
sudo mv wordpress /var/www/wordpress

Then run command below to allow www-data user to own the WordPress directory.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/wordpress/

Step 6: Configure Nginx

Below is where you configure Nginx VirtualHost file for the WordPress site you’re creating. This file defines how client requests are handled and processed.

Run the commands below to create a new VirtualHost file called wordpress in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress

A very good configuration settings for most WordPress site on Nginx server is below. This configuration should work great.

Copy the content below and save into the file created above.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/wordpress;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

    client_max_body_size 100M;
    autoindex off;
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
         include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
         fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
         include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

After saving the file above, run the commands below to enable the new site, then restart Nginx server.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

At this stage, WordPress is ready and can be launched by going to the server’s IP or hostname.

http://localhost

However, if you want to enable SSL or accept web traffic over HTTPS, then you can continue below to install and configure Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificates.

Step 7: Install Let’s Encrypt Wildcard Certificates

At step 6, WordPress is ready to use without SSL. However, if you want to serve web traffic over HTTPS, then installing and configuring Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate or other public certificates is a must.

To install Let’s Encrypt, run the commands below.

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install letsencrypt

The commands above will install certbot tool and all dependencies that will be allowed to make the tool function.

Let’s Encrypt provides many ways to challenge you to validate that you own the domain you want to provide SSL certificates for. You will not be able to generate certificates if you can’t prove that you own the domain you want to secure.

For wildcard certificates, the only challenge method Let’s Encrypt accepts is the DNS challenge, which we can invoke via the preferred-challenges=dns flag.

So, to generate a wildcard cert for domain *.example.com, you run the commands below:

sudo certbot certonly --manual --preferred-challenges=dns --email admin@example.com --server https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory --agree-tos -d example.com -d *.example.com

The command options above are explained below:

certonly: Obtain or renew a certificate, but do not install
–manual: Obtain certificates interactively
–preferred-challenges=dns: Use dns to authenticate domain ownership
–server: Specify the endpoint to use to generate
–agree-tos: Agree to the ACME server’s subscriber terms
-d: Domain name to provide certificates for

After executing the command above, Let’s Encrypt will provide a text string to add a text record to your DNS entry…

Example:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator manual, Installer None

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Would you be willing to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a founding partner of the Let's Encrypt project and the non-profit
organization that develops Certbot? We'd like to send you email about EFF and
our work to encrypt the web, protect its users and defend digital rights.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Y)es/(N)o: y
Obtaining a new certificate
Performing the following challenges:
dns-01 challenge for example.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: The IP of this machine will be publicly logged as having requested this
certificate. If you're running certbot in manual mode on a machine that is not
your server, please ensure you're okay with that.

Are you OK with your IP being logged?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Y)es/(N)o: y

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please deploy a DNS TXT record under the name
_acme-challenge.example.com with the following value:

x4MrZ6y-JqFJQRmq_lGi9ReRQHPa1aTC9J2O7wDKzq8

Before continuing, verify the record is deployed.

Go to your DNS provider portal and add a text record for the string above and save…

Wait a few mins before continuing from the prompt.

Some DNS providers take a wile to propagate changes so it may depend on your provider’s platform.

After the changes above and Let’s encrypt is able to validate that you own the domain, you should see a successful message as below:

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
   Your key file has been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem
   Your cert will expire on 2020-01-09. To obtain a new or tweaked
   version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot
   again. To non-interactively renew *all* of your certificates, run
   "certbot renew"

The wildcard certificate is now generated and ready to be used.

To verify that the certificate is ready, run the commands below:

sudo certbot certificates

That should display similar screen as below:

Found the following certs:
  Certificate Name: example.com
    Domains: *.example.com
    Expiry Date: 2020-01-05 07:48:04+00:00 (VALID: 85 days)
    Certificate Path: /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
    Private Key Path: /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem

Now, Let’s Encrypt’s certificates are valid for 90 days… You’ll want to setup a crob job to automate the renewal process… To do that, open crontab and add the entry below:

sudo crontab -e

Then add the line below and save…

0 1 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew >> /var/log/letsencrypt/renew.log

Save and you’re done!

With Let’s Encrypt installed, reopen Nginx VirtualHost file created above and add Let’s Encrypt configurations to secure your website.

Run the commands below open the file.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress

Then add the highlighted lines to the VirtualHost file as shown below:

server {
     listen 80;
     listen [::]:80;
     server_name *.example.com;
     return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}
server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    root /var/www/wordpress;
    index  index.php;
    server_name *.example.com;

   if ($host != "example.com") {
      return 301 https://example.com$request_uri;
     }

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;
    ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/chain.pem;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers 'TLS13+AESGCM+AES128:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS';
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
    ssl_session_timeout 1d;
    ssl_session_tickets off;
    ssl_ecdh_curve X25519:sect571r1:secp521r1:secp384r1;

    client_max_body_size 100M;
    autoindex off;
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
         include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
         fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
         include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

After the above, restart Nginx and PHP 7.4-FPM

sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo systemctl reload php7.4-fpm

Next, open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see WordPress setup wizard to complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.

https://example.com/

Then follow the on-screen instructions… Select the installation language then click Continue

You will need to know the following items before proceeding…. Use the database connection info you created above….

Database name
Database username
Database password
Database host
Table prefix (if you want to run more than one WordPress in a single database)

The wizard will use the database information to create a wp-config.php file in WordPress root folder….

If for any reason this automatic file creation doesn’t work, don’t worry… All this does is fill in the database information to a configuration file. You may also simply open wp-config-sample.php in a text editor, fill in your information, and save it as wp-config.php.

Next, type in the database connection info and click Submit

After that, click Run the installation button to have WordPress complete the setup…

Next, create the WordPress site name and the backend admin account…. then click Install WordPress

When you’re done, WordPress should be installed and ready to use…

Congratulation! You have successfully installed WordPress CMS on Ubuntu 18.04 | 20.04. If you find any error above, please use the comment form below to report it.

Thanks,

DeciusAc

IT / How To's / Fitness

How to Install WordPress on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 with Nginx and Let’s Encrypt

How to Install WordPress on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 with Nginx and Let’s Encrypt

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server

Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server

Step 3: Install PHP 7.4 and Related Modules

Step 4: Create WordPress Database

Step 5: Download WordPress

Step 6: Configure Nginx

Step 7: Install Let’s Encrypt Wildcard Certificates