How To Install WordPress on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install WordPress on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that stands out for its user-friendliness and SEO capabilities. It’s an excellent platform for anyone looking to build a website that is both easy to manage and optimized for search engines. WordPress is renowned for its simplicity and flexibility, making it a popular choice for bloggers, businesses, and e-commerce sites alike. It offers an intuitive interface that allows users to create and publish content without needing extensive technical knowledge.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the WordPress content management systems on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install WordPress on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing LAMP Stack on Ubuntu 22.04.

Before starting this tutorial, the LAMP server must be installed on your server. If you do not have LAMP Stack installed, you can follow our guide here.

Step 3. Installing WordPress on Ubuntu 22.04.

By default, WordPress is not available on Ubuntu 22.04 base repository. Now run the following command below to download the latest stable version of WordPress to your Ubuntu system:

wget -O /tmp/wordpress.tar.gz https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Next, extract the WordPress tarball to the webroot directory using the command below:

tar -xzvf /tmp/wordpress.tar.gz -C /var/www/html

We will need to change some folders permissions:

chown -R www-data.www-data /var/www/html/wordpress

Step 4. Configuring MariaDB for WordPress.

By default, MariaDB is not hardened. You can secure MariaDB using the mysql_secure_installation script. you should read and below each step carefully which will set a root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database and access to secure MariaDB:

mysql_secure_installation

Configure it like this:

- Set root password? [Y/n] y
- 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

Next, we will need to log in to the MariaDB console and create a database for WordPress. Run the following command:

mysql -u root -p

This will prompt you for a password, so enter your MariaDB root password and hit Enter. Once you are logged in to your database server you need to create a database for WordPress installation:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE wordpress_db;
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'wordpress_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-strong-password';
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL ON wordpress_db.* TO 'wordpress_user'@'localhost';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> EXIT;

For additional resources on installing MariaDB, read the post below:

• How to install MariaDB on Ubuntu Linux √

Step 5. Configure WordPress.

Now navigate to the WordPress directory and rename the sample configuration file:

cd /var/www/html/wordpress
sudo mv wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php

Next, edit the WordPress configuration file:

nano /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-config.php

Add the following file configuration:

define( 'DB_NAME', 'wordpress_db' );

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

/** Database password */
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'your-strong-password' );

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

Step 6. Configure Apache Virtual Host.

Now create the virtual host configuration file for WordPress:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/www.domain.com.conf

Add the following file:

<VirtualHost *:80>

   ServerName domain.com
   ServerAlias www.domain.com
   ServerAdmin admin@domain.com
   DocumentRoot /var/www/html/wordpress

   ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/www.domain.com_error.log
   CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/www.domain.com_access.log combined

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

</VirtualHost>

Save and close the file, then restart the Apache webserver so that the changes take place:

sudo a2ensite www.domain.com.conf
sudo a2enmod ssl rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

For additional resources on installing Apache, read the post below:

• How to install Apache on Ubuntu Linux √

Step 7. Secure WordPress with Let’s Encrypt.

First of all, you need to install Certbot to get an SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache

Next, get your SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt by following these steps:

sudo certbot --apache

You will need to follow the interactive prompt and install the certificate. Since I have two domains, I will install SSL certificates for both domains:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Enter email address (used for urgent renewal and security notices)
 (Enter 'c' to cancel): admin@domain.com

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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. Do you agree?
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(Y)es/(N)o: Y 

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Would you be willing, once your first certificate is successfully issued, 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 our work encrypting the web,
EFF news, campaigns, and ways to support digital freedom.
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(Y)es/(N)o: N
Account registered.

Which names would you like to activate HTTPS for?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1: domain.com
2: www.domain.com
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Select the appropriate numbers separated by commas and/or spaces, or leave input
blank to select all options shown (Enter 'c' to cancel): 1,2
Requesting a certificate for domain.com and www.domain.com

Successfully received certificate.
Certificate is saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/domain.com/fullchain.pem
Key is saved at:         /etc/letsencrypt/live/domain.com/privkey.pem
This certificate expires on 2022-12-10.
These files will be updated when the certificate renews.
Certbot has set up a scheduled task to automatically renew this certificate in the background.

Deploying certificate
Successfully deployed certificate for domain.com to /etc/apache2/sites-available/www.domain.com-le-ssl.conf
Successfully deployed certificate for www.domain.com to /etc/apache2/sites-available/www.domain.com-le-ssl.conf
Congratulations! You have successfully enabled HTTPS on https://domain.com and https://www.domain.com

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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
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Step 8. Set up Auto-Renewal SSL.

Let’s Encrypt certificates have 90 days of validity, and it is highly advisable to renew the certificates before they expire. You can test automatic renewal for your certificates by running this command:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Output:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

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Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/domain.com.conf
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Account registered.
Simulating renewal of an existing certificate for domain.com and www.domain.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Congratulations, all simulated renewals succeeded: 
  /etc/letsencrypt/live/domain.com/fullchain.pem (success)
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Step 9. Configure Firewall.

Now we set up an Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW) with Apache to allow public access on default web ports for HTTP and HTTPS:

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow 'Apache Full'
sudo ufw enable

Step 10. Accessing WordPress Web Interface.

Once successfully installed, open your web browser and access the WordPress installation wizard using the URL https://domain.com. You will be redirected to the following page:

Congratulations! You have successfully installed WordPress. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing WordPress with LAMP on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the WordPress website.