Deploying WordPress on Leafcloud

Everybody and their aunt has a website nowadays. One of the easiest ways to get a simple website up and running is WordPress. Deploying WordPress on Leafcloud is straightforward and the perfect way to get started on our truly green cloud infrastructure. This guide will take you through the steps one at a time. Get ready to enjoy your own truly green WordPress website!

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create an instance

- Follow the "Getting Started" instructions to create an Ubuntu instance, keypair, security group, and to connect to your instance using SSH.  

- Create an instance that fits your website's resource demand. For this example, we will use a small instance (ec1.small with 20GB). Depending on the number of concurrent visitors, this is sufficient for most small/medium websites.

- For your Security groups, the ports used by WordPress are 80 & 443 (http & https)

- Create a DNS A record to point your domain to your assigned IP, this might take some time and is needed later for SSL/HTTPS

Next, we're going to run through the required steps to prep your new instance.

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- update your instance

```

sudo apt update

sudo apt -y upgrade  

sudo apt -y dist-upgrade  

sudo apt -y autoremove  

sudo apt -y autoclean

```

- Download requirements

```

sudo apt install -y apache2 mysql-server php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-xmlrpc php-soap php-intl php-zip

```

reboot your instance (in case of kernel changes)

`sudo reboot`

Now ssh back into your instance

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Next, we're going to create an SQL database

set a root password for mysql

`sudo mysql`

replace "my_supersecure_pwd" with your preferred pasword

`ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'my_supersecure_pwd';`

exit mysql: `exit;`

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run the secure installation procedure:

`sudo mysql_secure_installation`

Enter the root password you set before (excluding the '')

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Choose wether you want the 'VALIDATE PASSWORD COMPONENT' this is advised, however for this tutorial we choose not to enable it

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Choose whether you want to keep or change the root password

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Choose 'Y' to remove the anonymous user

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Since you are connecting over SSH choose 'N' for disallowing remote root login

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Choose 'Y' for removing the test database

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And a final 'Y' to reload the privilege tables

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Login to mysql: ‍

`mysql -u root -p`

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Create a database for your site, replacing 'MY_WEBSITE' with your preferred database name ‍

`CREATE DATABASE MY_WEBSITE DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;`

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Create a separate mysql user & user password by replacing "MY_USER" and "MY_PWD"

`CREATE USER 'MY_USER'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'MY_PWD';`

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Grant your new user access to your database, make sure you replace the fields

`GRANT ALL ON MY_WEBSITE.* TO 'MY_USER'@'%';` ‍

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Apply privileges and exit mysql:

`FLUSH PRIVILEGES;`

`exit;`

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Configure apache2

Enable your site in apache2

`a2ensite 000-default`

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Enable the rewrite module

`sudo a2enmod rewrite`

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Restart apache2

`sudo systemctl restart apache2`

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Download WordPress ‍

Go to your temporary folder  

`cd /tmp` ‍

Download WordPress

`wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz`

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Extract the package

`tar xzvf latest.tar.gz`

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Create some files and folders to avoid permission issues later

`touch /tmp/wordpress/.htaccess`

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

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`mkdir /tmp/wordpress/wp-content/upgrade`

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Copy the wordpress folder to your webroot

`sudo cp -a /tmp/wordpress/. /var/www/html`

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Change ownership of your webroot to the 'www-data' user and group

`sudo chown -R -v www-data:www-data /var/www/html`

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Use the WordPress keygen to create some secure keys for your config file by opening the following page in your browser:

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

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Copy these keys & edit the config file

`sudo nano /var/www/html/wp-config.php`

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Scroll down until you find the example keys. Remove the examples and copy your newly generated ones in their place.

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Now scroll up until you find the 'Database settings' section and fill in the variables you entered earlier in the mysql section of this tutorial

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```

define( 'DB_NAME', 'MY_WEBSITE' );

/** Database username */

define( 'DB_USER', 'MY_USER' );

/** Database password */

define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'MY_PWD' );

```

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Close the config file with 'ctrl+x' followed by 'y' and 'enter'

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Remove the apache2 default index file

`sudo rm /var/www/html/index.html`

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Now finish your WordPress installation

In your browser visit your URL and follow the installation steps ‍

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Get a certificate

In your SSH session install certbot

`sudo snap install --classic certbot`

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Make sure certbot can work outside it's snap

`sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot`

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Get a certificate by running this command and following the steps

`sudo certbot --apache`

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Get yourself a drink, sit back, and relax

Your WordPress site is now fully operational and can be reached at

<https://yourdomain>

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