How to Install WordPress with Apache on Ubuntu 18.04

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

Creating a MySQL database

WordPress uses MySQL database to store all its data like posts, pages, users, plugins and themes settings. We’ll start by creating a MySQL database, MySQL user account and grant access to the database.

If you don’t have MySQL or MariaDB installed on your Ubuntu server you can do that by following one of the guides below:

Install MySQL on Ubuntu 18.04

Install MariaDB on Ubuntu 18.04

Login to the MySQL shell by typing the following command:

sudo mysql

From within the MySQL shell, run the following SQL statement to create a database :

CREATE DATABASE wordpress CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_general_ci;

Next, create a MySQL user account and grant access to the database:

GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO 'wordpressuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'change-with-strong-password';

Finally, exit the mysql console by typing:

EXIT

Installing PHP

PHP 7.2 which is the default PHP version in Ubuntu 18.04 is fully supported and recommended for WordPress.

To install PHP and all required PHP extensions run the following command:

sudo apt install php7.2 php7.2-cli php7.2-mysql php7.2-json php7.2-opcache php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xml php7.2-gd php7.2-curl

Restart apache so the newly installed PHP extensions are loaded:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Downloading Wordpress

Before downloading the Wordpress archive, first create a directory which will hold our WordPress files:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.com

The next step is to download the latest version of WordPress from the WordPress download page using the following wget command :

cd /tmp

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

Once the download is complete, extract the archive and move the extracted files into the domain’s document root directory:

tar xf latest.tar.gz

sudo mv /tmp/wordpress/* /var/www/example.com/

Set the correct permissions so that the web server can have full access to the site’s files and directories using the following chown command :

sudo chown -R www-data: /var/www/example.com

Configuring Apache

By now, you should already have Apache with SSL certificate installed on your system, if not check the prerequisites for this tutorial.

The next step is to edit the Apache virtual hosts configuration for our WordPress domain:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf

The following Apache configuration redirects HTTP to HTTPS and www to non-www version of your domain and enables HTTP2. Don’t forget to replace example.com with your Wordpress domain and set the correct path to the SSL certificate files.

/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>

  ServerName example.com

  ServerAlias www.example.com

  Redirect permanent / https://example.com/

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>

  ServerName example.com

  ServerAlias www.example.com

  Protocols h2 http/1.1

  <If "%{HTTP_HOST} == 'www.example.com'">

    Redirect permanent / https://example.com/

  </If>

  DirectoryIndex index.html index.php

  DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com

  ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com-error.log

  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com-access.log combined

  SSLEngine On

  SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/cert.pem

  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem

  SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/chain.pem

  <Directory /var/www/example.com>

      Options FollowSymLinks

      AllowOverride All

      Require all granted

  </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

Copy

Enable the virtual host for the domain. The command below will create a symbolic link from the sites-available to the sites-enabled directory:

sudo a2ensite example.com

For the new configuration to take effect, restart the Apache service by typing:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Completing the WordPress Installation

Now that Wordpress is downloaded and the server configuration is complete, it is time to finalize the WordPress installation through the web interface.

Open your browser, type your domain and a screen similar to the following will appear:

Install wordpress language selector

Select the language you would like to use and click on the Continue button.

Next, you will see the following information page, click on the Let's go! button.

Install wordpress information

On the next screen, the setup wizard will ask you to enter your database connection details. Enter the MySQL user and database details you previously created.

Install wordpress database information

Start the installation by clicking on the Run the Installation button.

Install wordpress Run Installation

In the next step, you’ll need to enter a name for your WordPress site and choose a username (for security purposes do not enter “admin” ).

The installer will automatically generate a strong password for you. Do not forget to save this password. You can also set the password by yourself.

Enter your email address and select whether you want to discourage search engines from indexing the site (not recommended).

Install wordpress welcome

Click Install WordPress and once the installation is completed you will be taken to a page informing you that WordPress has been installed. To access your WordPress login form click on the Log in button.

Install wordpress completed

Enter your username and password and click on the Log in button.

wordpress login form

Once you log in, you will be redirected to the WordPress administration dashboard.

wordpress dashboard

From here, you can start customizing your WordPress installation by installing new themes and plugins.