When starting or redesigning a WordPress website or blog, the first thing you’ll want to do is to get it right the first time. When you get it right the first time, there will be no need to go back to fix issues that weren’t setup correctly.
These are things to include when setting up a new WordPress website or blog in 2018 and forward: SSL/TLS and HTTP/2 support.
These days, majority of websites and blogs are running over HTTPS.
Websites running over HTTPS or SSL/TLS may rank better than those that are not. Since HTTPS is important in the eyes of Google and other search engine providers, why not include it with your WordPress setup.
Also, HTTP/2 (version 2) is the newer version to HTTP/1 and is rapidly gaining tractions. So, if you’re going to be installing WordPress in 2018, get a free Let’s Encrypt SSL/TLS certificate and well as enable HTTP/2.
This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install WordPress with Nginx HTTP/2 and Let’s Encrypt support on Ubuntu 17.04 | 17.10.When you’re ready to get WordPress setup properly, continue with the steps below:
STEP 1: PREPARE AND UPDATE UBUNTU
It’s good to always update Ubuntu servers before installing packages… to update Ubuntu, run the commands below.
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade && sudo apt autoremove
After updating Ubuntu, continue below with installing required packages for WordPress to work.
STEP 2: INSTALL Nginx WEB SERVER
Starting with Nginx version 1.9.5, HTTP/2 support is included by default… The latest version of Ubuntu comes with Nginx with HTTP/2 built-in to it. To install Nginx, run the commands.
sudo apt install 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
STEP 3: INSTALL MARIADB DATABASE SERVER
MariaDB database server is rapidly overtaking MySQL in the open source and Linux communities… MariaDB is the default database server on majority of Linux distributions… and WordPress requires a database server.. run the commands below to install MariaDB.
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client
After installing, 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
After that, run the commands below to secure MariaDB server and create a new root password.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.
- Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press 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
STEP 4: INSTALL PHP-FPM AND RELATED MODULES
Now that Nginx and MariaDB are installed, run the commands below to install PHP and related PHP modules on the new server. This is a good list of PHP modules to install.
sudo apt install php-fpm php-common php-mbstring php-xmlrpc php-soap php-gd php-xml php-intl php-mysql php-cli php-mcrypt php-ldap php-zip php-curl
After install PHP, run the commands below to open PHP-FPM default file.
sudo nano /etc/php/7.x/fpm/php.ini
Depending on your system, the x in the command above could be 0 or 1 .
Then scroll down the lines in the file and change the following lines below and save.
post_max_size = 100M memory_limit = 256M max_execution_time = 360 upload_max_filesize = 100M
STEP 5: CREATE A BLANK WORDPRESS DATABASE
At this point, all the required WordPress packages and and servers are installed. The new server is now ready to host WordPress… On the new server, create a blank WordPress database. WordPress will use this empty database to store its content.
Run the commands below to logon to the database server. When prompted for a password, type the root password you created above.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then create a blank database called WP_database you can use the same database name from the old server.
CREATE DATABASE WP_database;
Create a database user called wp_user with new password. You can use the same username and password from the old server.
CREATE USER 'wp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'type_password_here';
Then grant the user full access to the database.
GRANT ALL ON WP_database.* TO 'wp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'type_user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;
Finally, save your changes and exit.
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT;
STEP 6: CONFIGURE THE NEW WORDPRESS SITE
Next, configure the WordPress site configuration file on the server. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called wordpress
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress
Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace example.com with your own domain name.
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /var/www/html/wordpress;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
client_max_body_size 100M;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
# fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock; # for Ubuntu 17.04
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock; # for Ubuntu 17.10
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}
}Save the file and exit.
STEP 7: ENABLE THE WORDPRESS SITE
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
STEP 8: DOWNLOAD WORDPRESS LATEST RELEASE
Next, visit WordPress site and download the latest…. or run the commands below to do that for you.
cd /tmp && wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz tar -zxvf latest.tar.gz sudo mv wordpress /var/www/html/wordpress
Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for WordPress root directory.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/wordpress/ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/wordpress/
STEP 9: CONFIGURE WORDPRESS
Next, run the commands below to create WordPress wp-config.php file. This is the default configuration file for WordPress.
sudo mv /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-config.php
Then run the commands below to open WordPress configuration file.
sudo nano /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-config.php
Enter the highlighted text below that you created for your database and save.
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'WP_database');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'wp_user');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'new_password_here');
/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
/** The Database Collate type. Don't change this if in doubt. */
define('DB_COLLATE', '');Save the file and you’re done.
Now all is configured… run the commands below to reload Nginx web server settings.
sudo systemctl reload nginx.service
After that, open your browser and browse to the server IP address or domain name to continue with WordPress setup.
Step 10: Obtain and Configure Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificates
Now that the WordPress configuration is done, continue below to get Let’s Encrypt installed and configured. Let’s Encrypt now provides a Nginx client to automate this process. To get the client installed on Ubuntu, run the commands below
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx
After that run the commands below to obtain your free Let’s Encrypt SSL/TLS certificate for your site.
sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com
After running the above commands, you should get prompted to enter your email and accept the licensing terms. If everything is checked, the client should automatically install the free SSL/TLS certificate and configure the Nginx site to use the certs.
Please read the Terms of Service at
https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.2-November-15-2017.pdf. You must
agree in order to register with the ACME server at
https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(A)gree/(C)ancel: A
Choose Yes ( Y ) to share your email address
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
This is how easy is it to obtain your free SSL/TLS certificate for your Nginx powered website.
Please choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, removing HTTP access. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1: No redirect - Make no further changes to the webserver configuration. 2: Redirect - Make all requests redirect to secure HTTPS access. Choose this for new sites, or if you're confident your site works on HTTPS. You can undo this change by editing your web server's configuration. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Select the appropriate number [1-2] then [enter] (press 'c' to cancel): 2
Pick option 2 to redirect all traffic over HTTPS. This is important!
After that, the SSL client should install the cert and configure your website to redirect all traffic over HTTPS.
Congratulations! You have successfully enabled https://example.com and https://www.example.com You should test your configuration at: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=example.com https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.example.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 2018-02-24. To obtain a new or tweaked version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot again with the "certonly" option. To non-interactively renew *all* of your certificates, run "certbot renew" - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by: Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt: https://letsencrypt.org/donate Donating to EFF: https://eff.org/donate-le
The highlighted code block should be added to your Nginx WordPress configuration file automatically by Let’s Encrypt certbot. Your WordPress site is ready to be used over HTTPS.
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /var/www/html/wordpress;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
client_max_body_size 100M;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
# fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock; # for Ubuntu 17.04
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock; # for Ubuntu 17.10
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}
listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot
if ($scheme != "https") {
return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
} # managed by Certbot
# Redirect non-https traffic to https
# if ($scheme != "https") {
# return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
# } # managed by Certbot
}Let’s Encrypt should be installed and configured for your WordPress site.. continue below to enable HTTP/2 for the site.
STEP 11: CHANGE NGINX TO USE HTTP/2
Now that Let’s Encrypt SSL/TLS certificates have been added for this domain go and change Nginx to use HTTP/2 configuration. Change the highlighted portion below in purple of the configuration file as shown below
listen 443 ssl http2; listen [::]:443 ssl http2; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot if ($scheme != "https") { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; } # managed by Certbot # Redirect non-https traffic to https # if ($scheme != "https") { # return 301 https://$host$request_uri; # } # managed by Certbot
Save the file and you’re done.
Now Nginx should be setup with HTTP/2 protocol and Let’s Encrypt installed and configured…. Open your browser and browse to the domain name or IP address
ex. http://example.com
If everything is setup correctly, you’ll see WordPress setup wizard and continue with the setup.
Follow the on-screen instruction to complete the wizard.. you will be asked to input your database configuration, administrative details and other configuration settings. When complete you may sign-in and start using InvoiceNinja. Return to http://example.com/wp-admin/ anytime thereafter to sign-in.
That’s it!
To setup a process to automatically renew the certificates, add a cron job to execute the renewal process.
sudo crontab -e
Then add the line below and save.
0 1 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew & > /dev/null
The cron job will attempt to renew 30 days before expiring
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