• Table of contents
• Prepare The Server
• Install Apache 2
  • Configure Apache 2
  • Securing Apache with SSL
    • Forcing SSL on a Website
• Install MySQL 5.5
  • Configure a new MySQL database
• Install PHP 5
• Install WordPress

This is a simple guide for setting up WordPress on a LAMP server on Debian 7 (wheezy).

Prepare The Server¶

This guide is assumed that a Bare Debian install with only SSH Server access, a user that has sudo access.

• Obtain a root shell and upgrade the server:
  

  sudo -s
  apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
  

• Set the hostname in the hosts:
  

  vi /etc/hosts
  

  • And add/modify the following:
    

    127.0.1.1     wordpress.example.com wordpress
    

• And also edit the hostname file:
  

  vi /etc/hostname
  

  • And add/modify the following:
    

    wordpress
    

• Reboot to apply the hostname settings:
  

  reboot
  

Install Apache 2¶

• Install apache:
  

  apt-get install apache2
  

Configure Apache 2¶

• Edit the default apache2 Vhost config:
  

  vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/default
  

  • And add/modify the following VirtualHost block:
    

    <VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName wordpress.example.com
    
        DocumentRoot /var/www           
        <Directory /var/www>
            Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
            AllowOverride All
            Order allow,deny
            allow from all
        </Directory>
    </VirtualHost>
    

  • NOTE: Make sure AllowOverride is set to ALL, or else the .htaccess file will not work.

• Restart apache2:
  

  service apache2 restart
  

• Now navigate to http://wordpress.example.com and the default It Works! should be displayed.

Securing Apache with SSL¶

• Install openssl:
  

  apt-get install openssl
  

• Generate a strong SSL key and a CSR to send for signing by a CA:
  

  mkdir /etc/apache2/ssl && cd /etc/apache2/ssl
  openssl req -sha512 -out wordpress.example.com.csr -new -newkey rsa:4096 -nodes -keyout wordpress.example.com.key
  

• Make sure to securely copy the SSL certificate to wordpress.example.com.crt

• Edit the apache2 default ssl Vhost config file:
  

  vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl
  

  • And Add the following:
    

    <VirtualHost *:443>
        ServerName wordpress.example.com
    
        DocumentRoot /var/www            
        <Directory /var/www>
            Options FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride All
            Require all granted
        </Directory>
    
        SSLEngine on
    
        SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/wordpress.example.com.crt
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/wordpress.example.com.key
    
        <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
        </FilesMatch>
    
        BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
        BrowserMatch "MSIE [17-9]" ssl-unclean-shutdown
    </VirtualHost>
    

• Change the SSL certificate and key ownership to the apache user:
  

  chown www-data:www-data /etc/apache2/ssl/wordpress.example.com.{crt,key}
  chmod o-rwx /etc/apache2/ssl/wordpress.example.com.key
  

• Enable the ssl apache modules:
  

  a2enmod ssl
  

Forcing SSL on a Website¶

• Enable forced SSL connection by setting the two lines from earlier in the .htaccess file. Open the file for editing:
  

  vi /var/www/.htaccess
  

  • Look for the following two lines, and remove the # characters before them:
    

    RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
    RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
    

• Restart apache2:
  

  service apache2 restart
  

• Now the website will be accessible from https://wordpress.example.com

Install MySQL 5.5¶

• Install MySQL server and client:
  

  apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
  

  • NOTE: During the setup a prompt will appear to set the root MySQL user password. Set a strong password and do not forget it.

Configure a new MySQL database¶

• Log into the MySQL console:
  

  mysql -h localhost -u root -p
  

  • Create the wordpressuser user with the SuperSecretPassword password and the wordpressdb database:
    

    CREATE USER 'wordpressuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'SuperSecretPassword';   
    CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS  `wordpressdb` CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
    GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `wordpressdb`.* TO 'wordpressuser'@'localhost';
    
    flush privileges;
    exit
    

Install PHP 5¶

• Install PHP 5 with the apache-php module and a few common PHP extensions:
  

  apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-cli php5-mysql php5-mcrypt php5-gd
  

  • PHP has many extensions, run the following to get a list of all available extensions:
    

    apt-cache search php5-
    

• Restart apache for the php module to take effect:
  

  service apache2 restart
  

Install WordPress¶

• Install git
  

  apt-get install git
  

• Install WordPress:
  

  rm /var/www/*
  git clone -b 4.1-branch https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress.git /var/www
  

• Change the ownership of the wordpress file to the apache user:
  

  chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www