In this tutorial I’ll show you how you can setup LAMP environment on Linux platform and install WordPress blog manually on Amazon EC2 instance.
Contents
- 2-Tier Highly Available WordPress Deployment
First of all you need to create your AWS account. You can sign up by following this link. You will have to provide a credit card or international Debit card and a phone number on which you will be called as part of the online registration verification process as par their terms and policy.
Your credit card or debit card will be charge of minor value and it will be refunded once they verify it. Amazon offers a Free Usage Tier on which we will install WordPress, which is great to explore the services and even host real apps without being charged of single penny.
Now you need to setup an isolated networking environment in which the following AWS resources will be deployed using the cloudFormation template. Here we will deploy minimal networking resources for the sandbox environment.
Note: It is not advisable to use this stack for production environments, this is only for learning purpose
Using MINIMAL VPC stack the following AWS resources will be deployed
- VPC
- Public Subnets
- Public Route Tables
- IGW
Firstly save the below yaml in the file named "vpc_minimal.yml"
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Description: It contains the low grade security Vpc having 2 public subnets.
Metadata:
AWS::CloudFormation::Interface:
ParameterGroups:
- Label:
default: "Network Configurations"
Parameters:
- VpcCIDR
- PublicSubnet1CIDR
- PublicSubnet2CIDR
Parameters:
VpcCIDR:
Description: cidr block for vpc.
Type: String
Default: 10.10.0.0/16
ConstraintDescription: Must be a valid IP range in x.x.x.x/x notation
PublicSubnet1CIDR:
Description: Cidr block for public subnet 1.
Type: String
Default: 10.10.1.0/24
PublicSubnet2CIDR:
Description: Cidr block for public subnet 2.
Type: String
Default: 10.10.2.0/24
Resources:
AppVPC:
Type: AWS::EC2::VPC
Properties:
CidrBlock: !Ref VpcCIDR
EnableDnsSupport: true
EnableDnsHostnames: true
Tags:
- Key: Name
Value: !Sub vpc-${AWS::StackName}
# create a internetgateway
AppIGW:
Type: AWS::EC2::InternetGateway
DependsOn: AppVPC
Properties:
Tags:
- Key: Name
Value: !Sub IGW-${AWS::StackName}
AttachGateway:
Type: AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment
Properties:
VpcId: !Ref AppVPC
InternetGatewayId: !Ref AppIGW
# Create 2 public subnet
PublicSubnet1:
Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
Properties:
VpcId: !Ref AppVPC
AvailabilityZone: !Select [ '0', !GetAZs '' ] # Get the first AZ in the list
CidrBlock: !Ref PublicSubnet1CIDR
Tags:
- Key: Name
Value: !Sub Public-Subnet1-${AWS::StackName}
MapPublicIpOnLaunch: true #it will assign public ip on launch
PublicSubnet2:
Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
Properties:
VpcId:
Ref: AppVPC
AvailabilityZone: !Select [ '1', !GetAZs '' ] # Get the second AZ in the list
CidrBlock: !Ref PublicSubnet2CIDR
MapPublicIpOnLaunch: true
Tags:
- Key: Name
Value: !Sub Public-Subnet2-${AWS::StackName}
# Public route table for our subnets:
PublicRouteTable:
Type: AWS::EC2::RouteTable
Properties:
VpcId: !Ref AppVPC
Tags:
- Key: Name
Value: !Sub PublicRouteTable-${AWS::StackName}
# Public route table has direct routing to IGW:
PublicRoute1:
Type: AWS::EC2::Route
DependsOn: AttachGateway
Properties:
RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable
DestinationCidrBlock: 0.0.0.0/0
GatewayId: !Ref AppIGW
# Attach the public subnets to public route tables,
# and attach the private subnets to private route tables:
PublicSubnet1RouteTableAssociation:
Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
Properties:
SubnetId: !Ref PublicSubnet1
RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable
PublicSubnet2RouteTableAssociation:
Type: AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation
Properties:
SubnetId: !Ref PublicSubnet2
RouteTableId: !Ref PublicRouteTable
Outputs:
VPCID:
Description: "VPC Id"
Value: !Ref AppVPC
Public1:
Description: Public Subnet1
Value: !Ref PublicSubnet1
Public2:
Description: Public Subnet2
Value: !Ref PublicSubnet2
Now go the cloudFormation section and upload the template as follows
Launch the template after reviewing all the configurations
After successful deployment of the template, check the resources created
Now we will create an EC2 instance, if you have new blog then you can choose EC2 micro instance which can handle around 200+ real-time traffic.
It has also attractive price structure but if you are migrating your existing blog and having traffic more than thousand per day then you must choose Small instance which can handle that traffic very easily.
To create a new instance, access the AWS Management Console and click the EC2 tab:
-
Choose an AMI in the classic instance wizard:
- I chose the Basic 64-bit Ubuntu Server Amazon Linux AMI.
Instance details:
- Select the Instance Type you want to use. I chose Small (t3a.small).
-
Create a new key pair.
- Enter a name for your key pair (i.e. road-to-devops) and download your key pair (i.e. road-to-devops.pem). -
Select VPC created in step 1 and give security group name
- Launch your instance.
Once your instance setup is complete and it shows instance is running, you can ssh into it.
First of all, you need to identify the IP Address (public DNS) of your instance:
-
Select the instance in the AWS Management Console.
-
Look for the Public DNS in the instance description (bottom part of the screen).
-
Use that address (and a path to your .pem file) to ssh into your instance:
ssh ec2-user@ec2-50-17-15-27.compute-1.amazonaws.com -i ~/road-to-devops.pem
If you are on windows system then you should use Putty for connect as SSH. You can connect with putty by following this article.
-
If you get an error message about your .pem file permissions being too open, chmod your .pem file as follows:
[ec2-user ~]$ chmod 400 ~/road-to-devops.pem
In this tutorial you need to perform many shell commands and most of command require root access. So, to avoid this we will prefix these all command with sudo by switching user once for all by this command.
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo su
To install the Apache Web Server, type in terminal:
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum -y install python-simplejson # Install PHP latest version
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum update # System wide upgrade
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install -y default-jre # Install Java (just to be safe)
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install httpd # Install HTTPD server
Start the Apache Web Server:
[ec2-user ~]$ service httpd start
After setup you need to test your Web Server,so allow port 80 in security group from everywhere
open a browser and access your web site:
http://ec2-54-163-7-4.compute-1.amazonaws.com/
(Use your actual public DNS name). You should see a standard Amazon place holder default page.
To install PHP, type in terminal:
[ec2-user ~]$ yum install php php-mysql
After installing php successfully Restart the Apache Web Server:
[ec2-user ~]$ service httpd restart
Create a page to test your PHP installation:
[ec2-user ~]$ cd /var/www/html
[ec2-user ~]$ vi test.php
- Type i to start the insert mode
- Type
- Type :wq to write the file and quit vi
Open a browser and access test.php to test your PHP installation:
http://ec2-54-163-7-4.compute-1.amazonaws.com/test.php
To install MySQL, type:
rpm --import https://repo.mysql.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-mysql-2022
wget http://dev.mysql.com/get/mysql57-community-release-el7-8.noarch.rpm
sudo yum localinstall mysql57-community-release-el7-8.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install mysql-community-server
Start MySQL:
service mysqld start
Now verify the port 3306 on which mysql is running using the following command
sudo netstat -nltp
Now check the root password generated by running the following command
sudo grep 'A temporary password is generated for root@localhost' /var/log/mysqld.log |tail -1
Here the password showed in hash is the the root password "b)IJj-q;F4F8"
After getting the password, run the following command and enter the above password
mysql -u root -p
Update the current root password by running the alter command
ALTER USER `root`@`localhost` IDENTIFIED BY 'Roadtodevops12356@@',
`root`@`localhost` PASSWORD EXPIRE NEVER;
Create your “blog” database:
To install WordPress, type:
[ec2-user ~]$ cd /var/www/html
[ec2-user ~]$ wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
To uncompress tar.gz file type:
[ec2-user ~]$ tar -xzvf latest.tar.gzcd
This will uncompress WordPress in its own WordPress directory. I like having WordPress in a separate directory, but would rather rename it to “blog” if you want to install it to subdomain like “http://your-site.com/blog”:
[ec2-user ~]$ mv wordpress blog
otherwise move all files to parent folder by typing:
[ec2-user ~]$ mv *.* ..
Create the WordPress wp-config.php file:
[ec2-user ~]$ cd blog
[ec2-user ~]$ mv wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php
[ec2-user ~]$ vi wp-config.php
- Type i to start insert mode. Modify the database connection parameters as follows:
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘blog’);
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘root’);
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘YOUR_PASSWORD’);
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);
- Press esc one time then
- Type :wq to write the file and quit vi
- Open a Browser and access your blog:
http://ec2-54-163-7-4.compute-1.amazonaws.com/blog (Use your public DNS name).
This should open the WordPress installation configuration process.
-
Note: If you face issues in php version, kindly update the php version using the following link :
https://www.ezeelogin.com/kb/article/how-to-upgrade-php-to-7-2-on-centos-282.html
-
TIP: To allow WordPress to use permalinks
WordPress permalinks need to use Apache .htaccess files to work properly, but this is not enabled by default on Amazon Linux. Use this procedure to allow all overrides in the Apache document root.
Open the httpd.conf file with your favorite text editor (such as nano or vim). If you do not have a favorite text editor, nano is much easier for beginners to use.
[ec2-user wordpress]$ sudo vim /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Find the section that starts with <Directory “/var/www/html“>. <Directory "/var/www/html">
#
# Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
# or any combination of:
# Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
#
# Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
# doesn't give it to you.
#
# The Options directive is both complicated and important. Please see
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#options
# for more information.
#
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
#
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
# Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
AllowOverride None
#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
Require all granted
</Directory>
Change the AllowOverride None line in the above section to read AllowOverride All.
-
Note: There are multiple AllowOverride lines in this file; be sure you change the line in the <Directory "/var/www/html"> section.
AllowOverride All
Save the file and exit your text editor.
To use your blog in production, you will have to:
- Associate an IP address to your instance
- Map your domain name to that IP address
- To associate an IP address to your instance: Steps: a. In the AWS Management Console, click Elastic IPs (left navigation bar)
b. Click Allocate New Address, and confirm by clicking the “Yes, Allocate” button
c. Right-click the newly allocated IP address and select “Associate” in the popup menu. Select the instance you just created and click “Yes, Associate”
d. To map your domain name to your IP address, you will have to use the tools provided by your domain registrar.
e. If you use GoDaddy, specify NS73.DOMAINCONTROL.COM and NS74.DOMAINCONTROL.COM as the name servers for your domain, and use the DNS Manager to modify the A record and point to your IP address or
f. If you are using Route 53, then create A record and map it to the EC2 IP address
g. Once everything is configured and mapped correctly, access the General Settings in the WordPress management console and make sure the WordPress Address and Site Address are specified correctly using your domain name
Note the old site URL and the new site URL for your instance. The old site URL is likely the public DNS name for your EC2 instance when you installed WordPress. The new site URL is the current public DNS name for your EC2 instance.
If you are not sure of your old site URL, you can use curl to find it with the following command.
[ec2-user ~]$ curl localhost | grep wp-content
You should see references to your old public DNS name in the output, which will look like this (old site URL in red):
<script type='text/javascript' src= http://ec2-50-17-15-27.compute-1.amazonaws.com/blog/wp-content/themes/twentyfifteen/js/functions.js?ver=20150330'></script>
Download the wp-cli with the following command.
[ec2-user ~]$ curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar
Search and replace the old site URL in your WordPress installation with the following command. Substitute the old and new site URLs for your EC2 instance and the path to your WordPress installation (usually /var/www/html or /var/www/html/blog).
[ec2-user ~]$ php wp-cli.phar search-replace 'old_site_url' 'new_site_url' --path=/path/to/wordpress/installation --skip-columns=guid
In a web browser, enter the new site URL of your WordPress blog to verify that the site is working properly again. That’s it. Also you can update using the following command
UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'oldurl.com', 'newurl.com') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';
You have successfully created LAMP environment and installed WordPress on Amazon EC2.
KEY POINTS to remember after setup
- wordpress site deployed on EC2 in public subnet without any loadbalancer and HA setup
- mysql db running on the same EC2 instance and create user with required permissions
- DB configurations updated in wp-config.php file for connecting applicatio to database
- allow only port 80 in the application security group
- DO NOT ALLOW port 22 from everywhere (0.0.0.0), only add my-ip
- Check the webserver being used (like in this blog Apache is used )
- UPDATE wp_options and set the URL required