Self-Hosted WordPress

#gnulinux #freesoftware #wordpress As always, check the most recent tutorial on the wiki.

This tutorial is for setting up a self-hosted WordPress instance on Debian GNU/Linux. This tutorial assumes you already have a LAMP stack with active TLS. If not, you should read the Apache Survival tutorial first. Once you do that, begin with some common php extensions needed for Word Press to function well:

sudo apt install php-cgi php-cli php-zip php-mysql php-mbstring php-intl php-fpm php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-imagick php-xml php-xmlrpc wget unzip php-gd php-zip

Okay, let’s now enable fast cgi and rewrite php modules and then check your config.

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod proxy_fcgi
sudo a2enconf php7.3-fpm
sudo apache2ctl configtest

Move index.php to the top priority as follows:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/dir.conf

Optionally, we can install phpmyadmin, and if you do, you should secure as follows:

sudo htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/.phpmyadmin phpmyadmin
sudo nano /usr/share/phpmyadmin/.htaccess

Enter the following in the file that opens:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Restricted Files"
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/.phpmyadmin
Require valid-user

Close and save the file. Let’s set up a database now for the WordPress instance:

sudo mysql -u root -p
mysql> CREATE DATABASE databasename DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
mysql> GRANT ALL ON databasename.* TO 'databaseuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'passwordhere';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> EXIT;

Next up, it is time to allow overrides in your primary apache configuration:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
<AllowOverride All>

If you have not set the fully qualified domain name, you may get an error – that can safely be ignored unless you desire it. If you want to get rid of that, navigate to ”/etc/apache2/apache.conf” and enter a ”ServerName”. Otherwise, time to download Word Press:

cd ~/Downloads
mkdir wpdownload
cd wpdownload
curl -O https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar xzvf latest.tar.gz
touch ~/Downloads/wpdownload/wordpress/.htaccess
sudo chmod 640 ~/Downloads/wpdownload/wordpress/.htaccess
cp ~/Downloads/wpdownload/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php ~/Downloads/wpdownload/wordpress/wp-config.php
mkdir ~/Downloads/wpdownload/wordpress/wp-content/upgrade

Okay, we will need the files and directories I created once we get it running. Now, let’s move the wordpress directory to the proper location for self-hosting.

sudo mv ~/Downloads/wpdownload/wordpress /var/www/site1.com/public_html

Now, let’s set up permissions and ownership:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/site1.com/public_html
sudo find /var/www/site1.com/public_html -type d -exec chmod g+s {} \;
sudo chmod 755 /var/www/site1.com/public_html/wp-content
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/site1.com/public_html/wp-content/themes
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/site1.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins

Ok, time to grab ‘secure values’ from WP.com and then set up ”wp-config.php” for the installation, and also enter in the database credentials from above:

curl -s https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/
sudo nano /var/www/site1.com/public_html/wp-config.php

Let’s also add the following line to the ”wp-config.php” file for updates:

sudo nano /var/www/site1.com/public_html/wp-config.php
define('FS_METHOD','direct');

Plug-ins and other WP services can mess with the ”.htaccess” file often, so use this default configuration below when that happens; more templates can be found here: WP Codex

sudo nano /var/www/site1.com/public_html/.htaccess

#BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
#ENDWordPress

Visit wordpress site and configure by opening a web browser of your choice and entering site1.com. If you need more than one site, but do not want to set up a separate virtual host, for example using ”subdomain.site1.com”, then you should read the wiki for Word Press Multisite.

You can optionally require an sftp server instead of using the default installer. Here’s an example using proftp, which is still maintained:

sudo apt install proftpd ftp ftp-ssl
cd /etc/proftpd
sudo openssl req -new -x509 -days 7305 -nodes -out ftpd-rsa.pem -keyout ftpd-rsa-key.pem
sudo nano /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf

TLSEngine on
TLSLog /var/log/proftpd-tls.log
TLSProtocol TLSv1
# Are clients required to use FTP over TLS when talking to this server?
TLSRequired off
TLSRSACertificateFile /etc/proftpd/ftpd-rsa.pem
TLSRSACertificateKeyFile /etc/proftpd/ftpd-rsa-key.pem
# Authenticate clients that want to use FTP over TLS?
TLSVerifyClient off
TLSOptions NoSessionReuseRequired

Put this snippet under #Include /etc/proftpd/tls.conf and then restart the service:

sudo systemctl restart proftpd.service

Happy hacking!