When dealing with high traffic WordPress websites or blogs you may want to implement some kind of caching mechanism to speed up the sites… One of the popular proxy servers that’s also a caching server is Varnish… If you want to build a fast WordPress sites with lots of web traffic, setting up Varnish as a proxy caching server will go a long way.

This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to setup WordPress on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with Apache2, MariaDB, PHP 7.1 and Varnish proxy server support to speed up WordPress… After this setup, your WordPress site performance should improve a bit.

When you’re ready to get this working, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Install Apache2 HTTP Server

To install Apache2, run the commands below

sudo apt install apache2

with Apache2 installed, run the commands below to disable directory listing.

sudo sed -i "s/Options Indexes FollowSymLinks/Options FollowSymLinks/" /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Next, run the commands below to stop, start and enable Apache2 service to always start up with the server boots.

sudo systemctl stop apache2.service
sudo systemctl start apache2.service
sudo systemctl enable apache2.service

STEP 2: INSTALL VARNISH

Now that Apache2 is installed, run the commands below to install Varnish

sudo apt-get install varnish

After installing Varnish, the commands below can be used to start, stop and enable Varnish to always start up when the server boots

sudo systemctl stop varnish.service
sudo systemctl start varnish.service
sudo systemctl enable varnish.service

STEP 3: SWITCH APACHE2 DEFAULT PORT TO 8080

Since we want Varnish to listen for all traffic coming to port 80 which is Apache2 default port, let’s configure Apache2 to use another port number. You can open Apache2 default port configuration file at /etc/apache2/ports.conf and change the Listen value to 8080.

To quickly change the port run the commands below to open Apache2 default port configuration file.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/ports.conf

Then make sure the file has these lines. Save when done.

# If you just change the port or add more ports here, you will likely also
# have to change the VirtualHost statement in
# /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

Listen 127.0.0.1:8080

Next, open Apache2 default virtualhost config file.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

Then make the highlighted change below.

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:8080>

Save then file and exit.

After that, run the commands below to disable Apahce2 default site.

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf

Then restart Apache2

sudo systemctl restart apache2.service

Now Apache2 default site is disabled…

Step 4: Install MariaDB Database Server

To install MariaDB run the commands below

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 mysql.service
sudo systemctl start mysql.service
sudo systemctl enable mysql.service

After that, run the commands below to secure MariaDB server by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

• Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the 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

Restart MariaDB server

sudo systemctl restart mysql.service

Step 5: Install PHP 7.1 and Related Modules

WordPress also requires PHP. However, PHP 7.1 isn’t available on Ubuntu default repositories… in order to install it, you will have to get it from third-party repositories.

Run the commands below to add the below third party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.1

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.1

sudo apt update

Run the commands below to install PHP 7.1 and related modules.

sudo apt install php7.1 libapache2-mod-php7.1 php7.1-common php7.1-mbstring php7.1-xmlrpc php7.1-soap php7.1-gd php7.1-xml php7.1-intl php7.1-mysql php7.1-cli php7.1-mcrypt php7.1-zip php7.1-curl

After install PHP 7.1, run the commands below to open Apache2 PHP default file.

sudo nano /etc/php/7.1/apache2/php.ini

Then make the changes on the following lines below in the file and save. The value below are great settings to apply in your environments.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

Step 6: Create WordPress Database

Now that you’ve install all the packages are installed, run the commands below to create a blank WordPress database.

Logon to MariaDB database server

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called wordpress

CREATE DATABASE wordpress;

Create a database user called wordpressuser with new password

CREATE USER 'wordpressuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO 'wordpressuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 7: Download WordPress Latest Release

Next, visit WordPress site and download the latest version….

After downloading, run the commands below to extract the downloaded file and move it into a new WordPress root directory.

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 to function.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/wordpress/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/wordpress/

Step 8: Configure Apache2

Finally, configure Apahce2 site configuration file for WordPress. This file will control how users access WordPress content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called wordpress.conf

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf

Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your own domain name and directory root location.

<VirtualHost *:8080>
     ServerAdmin admin@example.com
     DocumentRoot /var/www/html/wordpress/
     ServerName example.com
     ServerAlias www.example.com

     <Directory /var/www/html/wordpress/>
        Options +FollowSymlinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
     </Directory>

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

</VirtualHost>

Save the file and exit.

Step 9: Enable the WordPress and Rewrite Module

After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below… the commands also disable PHP7.0 and enable PHP 7.1 for Apache2.

sudo a2ensite wordpress.conf
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod php7.1

Step 10 : Restart Apache2

To load all the settings above, restart Apache2 by running the commands below.

sudo systemctl restart apache2.service

STEP 11: CONFIGURE WORDPRESS

Now that Nginx is configured, run the commands below to create WordPress wp-config.php file.

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', 'wordpress');

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

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'user_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', '');

STEP 12: CONFIGURE VARNISH TO USE PORT 80

Now that port 80 is free, let’s configure Varnish to use that post instead. To assign port 80 to Varnish, run the commands below.

Varnish default configure file is location at /etc/default/varnish

Open it by running the commands below:

sudo nano /etc/default/varnish

Then look for the config block under Alternative 2 and make the highlighted changes as shown below.

## Alternative 2, Configuration with VCL
#
# Listen on port 6081, administration on localhost:6082, and forward to
# one content server selected by the vcl file, based on the request.
#
DAEMON_OPTS="-a :80 \
-T localhost:6082 \
-f /etc/varnish/default.vcl \
-S /etc/varnish/secret \
-s malloc,256m"

Save the file when you’re done.

Next, run the commands below to open the default.vcl file

sudo nano /etc/varnish/default.vcl

Then add the highlighted lines shown below…

# Default backend definition. Set this to point to your content server.
backend default {
.host = "127.0.0.1";
.port = "8080";
}

sub vcl_recv {
    if (!(req.url ~ "wp-(login|admin)")) {
    unset req.http.cookie;
   }
}

sub vcl_fetch {
   if (!(req.url ~ "wp-(login|admin)")) {
    unset beresp.http.set-cookie;
    }
} 

Save the file and close out.

When you’re done, restart Varnish and Apache2

sudo systemctl start apache2.service
sudo systemctl start varnish.service

Next, run the commands below to start Varnish if it won’t start.

sudo /usr/sbin/varnishd -a :80 -b localhost:8080

After that, open your browser and browse to your domain name to launch WordPress configuration wizard.

http://example.com

And you should see WordPress setup wizard

Follow the wizard until you’ve successfully setup WordPress…

That’s it!

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