How to Install WordPress on Ubuntu VPS

1. Update Your Server

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

2. Install Nginx

sudo apt install nginx -y

sudo systemctl enable --now nginx

Check status:

systemctl status nginx

3. Install PHP & Required Extensions

Modern WordPress requires PHP 8.x.

sudo apt install php-fpm php-mysql php-xml php-gd php-curl php-mbstring php-zip php-intl php-soap php-bcmath -y

Check PHP version:

php -v

4. Install MySQL & Create Database

Install:

sudo apt install mysql-server -y

Secure MySQL:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Create DB:

sudo mysql

Inside MySQL:

sql

CREATE DATABASE wordpress DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

CREATE USER 'wpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword';

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'wpuser'@'localhost';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

EXIT;

5. Download WordPress

cd /tmp

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

tar -xvf latest.tar.gz

sudo mv wordpress /var/www/wordpress

Set permissions:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/wordpress

6. Configure Nginx Server Block

Create config:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress

Paste:

nginx

server {

    listen 80;

    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;

    root /var/www/wordpress;

    index index.php index.html;

    location / {

        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;

    }

    location ~ \.php$ {

        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;

    }

    location ~* \.(css|js|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|ico|svg)$ {

        expires max;

        log_not_found off;

    }

}

Enable site:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

sudo nginx -t

sudo systemctl reload nginx

7. Configure WordPress

Copy sample config:

cd /var/www/wordpress

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

Edit:

nano wp-config.php

Update DB settings:

php

define( 'DB_NAME', 'wordpress' );

define( 'DB_USER', 'wpuser' );

define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'StrongPassword' );

define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' );

8. Enable HTTPS (Let’s Encrypt SSL)

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y

sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com

Auto-renew test:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

9. Complete Installation in Browser

Visit:

Code

http://yourdomain.com

Set:

• Site title
• Admin username
• Admin password
• Email

Done — WordPress is live.

10. Optional: Redis Cache for High Performance

Install Redis:

bash

sudo apt install redis-server php-redis -y

sudo systemctl enable --now redis-server

Add to wp-config.php:

php

define( 'WP_REDIS_HOST', '127.0.0.1' );