How to Install WordPress on AlmaLinux 9 with LEMP Stack

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WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS), a platform you can use to build and maintain a website without any knowledge of coding. This software enables you to customize just about every aspect of your site.

Prerequisites:

Wordpress requires LEMP stack installed and running

For detailed installation, refer to LEMP Stack on Almalinux 9

Update Firewall Settings

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https

firewall-cmd --reload

Output:

[root@server ~]# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
success
[root@server ~]# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
success
[root@server ~]# firewall-cmd --reload
success

Secure MariaDB Installation

Next, we secure our MariaDB installation and setup a root password for MariaDB

mysql_secure_installation

Output:

[root@server ~]# mysql_secure_installation
NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!
Enter current password for root (enter for none):
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n] y
New password:
Re-enter new password:

Creating the new Database

Log into MySQL with the following command,

mysql -u root -p

First, we’ll create a new database,

CREATE DATABASE wordpress;

Next, create a new MySQL user account that we will use to operate on WordPress’s new database, with username “admin”

CREATE USER `admin`@`localhost` IDENTIFIED BY '<Enter Strong Password here>';

Link the user and DB together by granting our user access to the database,

GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO `admin`@`localhost`;

Flush the privileges so that MySQL knows about the user permissions we just added,

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit out of the MySQL command prompt by typing,

exit

Output:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.002 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER `admin`@`localhost` IDENTIFIED BY 'STRONG PASSWORD HERE';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.003 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO `admin`@`localhost`;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.002 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.002 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]> exit

Configure Nginx

Create a directory for storing our WordPress files

Note: replace example.com with your preferred domain name in the below commands.

mkdir -p /var/www/html/example.com/public_html

Next, create an nginx conf file for your website

nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/example.com.conf

Update the nginx.conf file

Ensure you replace example.com with your preferred domain name.

  server {
    listen         80;
    listen         [::]:80;
    server_name    example.com www.example.com;
    root           /var/www/html/example.com/public_html;
    index          index.html;

    location / {
      index index.php index.html index.htm;
      try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
    location ~* \.php$ {
      fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/www.sock;
      include         fastcgi_params;
      fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_FILENAME    $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
      fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_NAME        $fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

We can test the nginx configuration for any errors with,

nginx -t

Once that is successful, restart the nginx for the changes to take affect,

systemctl restart nginx

Download and Extract WordPress

Download the WordPress by using curl command and extract the downloaded file,

Remember to replace example.com with domain name in below commands.

curl -L -O http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

tar xf wordpress.tar.gz

mv wordpress/* /var/www/html/example.com/public_html/

Next, we will configure the wp-config.php as shown below:

 cd /var/www/html/blog.domainhere.info/public_html/

 cp wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php

Using your favorite editor, edit the file wp-config.php

 nano wp-config.php

replace the following contents with the correct values

 /** The name of the database for WordPress */
define( 'DB_NAME', 'wordpress' );

/** Database username */
define( 'DB_USER', 'admin' );

/** Database password */
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'password_here' );

/** Database hostname */
define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' );

That is, enter the DB name, username and password that was configured earlier.

Update file permissions

chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www/html/example.com/public_html

chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /var/www/html/example.com/public_html

Navigate to your browser

(http://server_IP/ or http://example.com)

Start WordPress installation by clicking on the Run the installation button:

Provide the requested information

Once the wordpress is installed login with your new user credentials