How to Install WordPress with LAMP Stack on Debian 9

Install WordPress with LAMP Stack on Debian 9

WordPress is the most popular and widely used content management system or blogging platform in the world. WordPress can be used as a Blog, eCommerce platform, Portfolio Website. At the backend, WordPress uses a MySQL database for storage and works on PHP processing. WordPress provides a lot of features and these features can also be extended by using a wide variety of available plugins for it. In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to install WordPress with LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) stack on Debian 9.

Prerequisites

Before you start to install WordPress with LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) stack on Debian. You must have a non-root user account on your server with sudo privileges. Also, you should have:

• Apache Installed on your Debian system using this tutorial.
• Your Domain must be pointed to your Debian server on which you are going to install WordPress.
• You should also have installed the LetsEncrypt SSL certificate by using this tutorial.
• Install MySQL or MariaDB for the backend database.

Install PHP

Currently at the time of writing this tutorial PHP 7.2 is the latest stable version available of PHP language. If you want you can also check the latest version for installation on PHP official website.

First, update the apt package manager index and upgrade the packages by typing below command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Now to install PHP and all the required modules run below command in the terminal:

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

You can confirm PHP installation by typing below command:

php -v

Now you should restart the apache service, you can do so by running below command:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Create MySQL Database and Grant Permissions

You should have MySQL installed on your system if it is not installed you can install it by this tutorial.

First log in to your MySQL database using below command:

mysql -u root -p

The above command will ask you to enter the password for the root user. Enter the password to go ahead.

Create the MySQL database for your WordPress typing below command:

CREATE DATABASE wordpress DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;

Now create a MySQL user and grant permissions for it using below command:

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

Now flush the database so the current MySQL version will know about these changes:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit MySQL using below command:

EXIT;

Download and Setup WordPress

Now navigate to /tmp directory using below command:

cd /tmp

Download the latest WordPress setup using below wget command, you can also use curl command here:

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

You should extract the downloaded file using below command:

tar xzvf latest.tar.gz

Now create the configuration file for WordPress using below command:

cp /tmp/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php /tmp/wordpress/wp-config.php

Then copy all the files to example.com directory using below command:

sudo cp -a /tmp/wordpress/. /var/www/example.com

Now change the ownership of example.com directory using below command:

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

To set up the WordPress configuration file you should generate some configuration files for it. Do so by running below command:

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

The generated output keys should be:

define('AUTH_KEY',         'm=w)!7{-EEc&[email protected]/?!>_hcF*BmQ+S2Do!QP>>O-|OI21');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'S?lk-{RG 5K~sd*1$N<aZ18jy|^0n#[email protected]#dJy2M-|jUruu[T+ cYfJ^@2-'); define('LOGGED_IN_KEY', '>i*8?IA#h/[email protected]?6MezjmoBWm&&b+h1YP?T.]Y=&*^h9[Bm`ThdbJ5zepb824LUd;-');
define('NONCE_KEY',        'cPim1L6}H1rQLtLj|FrN1DO:LZVsh`rr}5 `}k,f~%u)papX4|_J^Q%PKJ44uF[l');
define('AUTH_SALT',        ',+Aa_iZ/%yj5?-0F.O>Ogd6jCLU+2_2M$+1Zo-hUog70lLa$)[email protected]<~v!Acd');
define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', '-9sQ8iLS}1-iEX)b<A6(JNuPIGv2SV5ZiHV])[email protected]$4{[email protected]*fj8[ *Uc-'); define('LOGGED_IN_SALT', 'K$i5b^g?TK4M|w;mqlh>m9ZJ5eVAq0X;we}jvw:JNkKm-O|-=GdH-{I><`J(ZgKB'); define('NONCE_SALT', 'c_VY?z=E}2r0A&r!F/qk*rtM3>K-Id+z*qG*^2g#4/-sR2%GP>b|{<97nL4uP8K/');

Now open the /var/www/example.com/wp-config.php file,

sudo nano /var/www/example.com/wp-config.php

Find below the section and replace it with the above data:

Now you should also update configuration file as given below for database connection by replacing password-you-provided with the password you entered in above instructions:

define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress');

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

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

define('FS_METHOD', 'direct');

Configure Apache

Now open /etc/apache/sites-available/example.com.conf file:

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

And paste the following code in the above file:

  ServerName example.com

  Redirect permanent / https://example.com/

  DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
  DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com

  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

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

  Options FollowSymLinks
  AllowOverride All
  Require all granted

Next, to create a symlink from the directory sites-available to sites-enabled:

sudo a2ensite example.com

Restart Apache by using the following command:

sudo systemct restart apache2

Test WordPress

Now open the browser and navigate to your websites URL.

It will show you below window:

Now it will also prompt you for database configuration and authentication setup. Enter the proper inputs and you will be welcome to WordPress:

Conclusion

You have successfully learned how to install WordPress with LAMP stack on Debian 9. If you have any queries please don’t forget to comment out.