WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) used for creating and managing websites. It is an open-source platform written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. WordPress provides a user-friendly interface and a wide range of themes, plugins, and customization options, making it accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise.
In this tutorial we’ll show you how to install WordPress on Debian 12 OS.
Step 1: Update Operating System
Update your Debian 12 operating system to make sure all existing packages are up to date:
sudo apt update && apt upgrade
Also, install necessary packages:
sudo apt install nano wget unzip
Step 2: Install Nginx web server on Debian 12
To install Nginx, run the following command:
sudo apt intsall nginx
You can start the Nginx service and configure it to run on startup by entering the following commands:
sudo systemctl start nginx
sudo systemctl enable nginx
Verify the status of the Nginx service using systemctl status command:
sudo systemctl status nginx
● nginx.service – A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Active: active (running)
Docs: man:nginx(8)
Process: 674 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Process: 873 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 875 (nginx)
Tasks: 2 (limit: 2273)
Memory: 4.5M
CPU: 402ms
CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
├─875 “nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;”
└─876 “nginx: worker process”
Step 3: Install PHP and PHP extensions for WordPress
You can install PHP and other supporting packages using the following command:
sudo apt install php php-curl php-fpm php-bcmath php-gd php-soap php-zip php-curl php-mbstring php-mysqlnd php-gd php-xml php-intl php-zip
Verify if PHP is installed.
php -v
Output:
PHP 8.2.7 (cli) (built: Jun 9 2023 19:37:27) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.2.7, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v8.2.7, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies
After installing all the packages, edit the php.ini file:
sudo nano /etc/php/8.2/fpm/php.ini
Change the following settings per your requirements:
max_execution_time = 300
memory_limit = 512M
post_max_size = 128M
upload_max_filesize = 128M
To implement the changes, restart the php-fpm service:
sudo systemctl restart php8.2-fpm
Step 4: Install MariaDB Database Server
You can install MariaDB with the following command:
sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client
Start the database server daemon, and also enable it to start automatically at the next boot with the following commands:
sudo systemctl start mariadb
sudo systemctl enable mariadb
Verify the status of the MariaDB service using systemctl status command:
sudo systemctl status mariadb
Output:
● mariadb.service – MariaDB 10.11.3 database server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Active: active (running)
Docs: man:mariadbd(8)
https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/systemd/
Main PID: 959 (mariadbd)
Status: “Taking your SQL requests now…”
Tasks: 12 (limit: 2273)
Memory: 256.5M
CPU: 6.621s
CGroup: /system.slice/mariadb.service
└─959 /usr/sbin/mariadbd
Once the database server is installed, run the following command to secure your MariaDB server:
sudo mysql_secure_installation
You will then be asked several configuration questions, which you must answer Y to each of them.
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
Restart the database server for the changes to take effect.
sudo systemctl restart mariadb
Step 5: Create a New Database for WordPress
To do this, log in to your MariaDB server using the following command:
sudo mysql -u root -p
Run the following commands to create a new database and user:
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE wordpress_db;
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress_db.* TO ‘wordpress_user’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘password’;
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> EXIT
Note: Make sure to replace ‘password’ with a strong password of your choice.
Step 6: Download WordPress
We will now download the latest version of WordPress from the WordPress Official site.
Use the following command to download WordPress:
wget https://wordpress.org/latest.zip
Extract file into the folder /var/www/html/ with the following command,
sudo unzip latest.zip -d /var/www/html/
Next, navigate to the /var/www/html/wordpress/ directory:
cd /var/www/html/wordpress
WordPress comes with a configuration sample file. Make a copy of this file:
sudo cp wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php
Next, edit the WordPress configuration file and define your database settings:
sudo nano wp-config.php
Change the following lines that match your database settings:
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define( ‘DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress_db’ );
/** MySQL database username */
define( ‘DB_USER’, ‘wordpress_user’ );
/** MySQL database password */
define( ‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password’ );
/** MySQL hostname */
define( ‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’ );
Save the file when you are finished.
Change the permission of the website directory:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/wordpress/
Step 7: Configure Nginx Web Server for WordPress
Navigate to /etc/nginx/conf.d directory and run the following command to create a configuration file for your installation:
sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/wordpress.conf
Add the following content:
server { server_name yoursite.name www.yoursite.name; root /var/www/html/yoursitename; index index.html index.htm index.php; client_max_body_size 64M; # Increase this value as needed location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args; } location ~ \.php$ { include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf; fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock; # change version if needed } location ~ /\.ht { deny all; } location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|ico|svg|webp)$ { expires 30d; add_header Cache-Control "public, no-transform"; } }
Save the file and Exit.
Restart the Nginx web server.
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Step 8: Access WordPress Web Installer
Open your browser type your domain e.g http://your-domain.com You will be redirected to the language selection screen:
Installation wizard
Select your language and click on the Continue button.
Welcome page
Provide the requested information and click on the Install WordPress button. Once the installation has been finished. You should see the following screen:
WordPress success installation
Click on the Log in button. You should see the WordPress login screen:
WordPress login page
Enter your administrator user, password and click on the Log In button. You will get the dashboard in the following screen:
