WordPress installation on GCP

1. Create a VM Instance on GCP

1) Log in to the GCP Console, navigate to Compute Engine → VM Instances.

2) Click Create Instance.

3) Configure the instance with the following settings:

• Name: Enter your preferred name.
• Region/Zone: Choose your desired location.
• Machine Type: e2-micro (suitable for low-traffic websites).
• Boot Disk:
  • Image: Debian 12 (Bookworm)
  • Size: Minimum 20GB recommended.
• Firewall: Check both Allow HTTP traffic and Allow HTTPS traffic.

4) Click Create to launch the VM instance.

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2. Access the Instance via SSH

1) Open the GCP Console and locate the created instance.

2) Click the SSH button to connect to your instance.

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3. Update the System

Once connected, update and upgrade the system packages using the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

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4. Install the LAMP Stack

WordPress requires a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) to operate. Install the necessary components as follows:

1) Install Apache

sudo apt install apache2 -y
sudo systemctl enable apache2
sudo systemctl start apache2

2) Install MariaDB

sudo apt install mariadb-server -y
sudo systemctl enable mariadb
sudo systemctl start mariadb

Secure the installation:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Follow the prompts to set a root password and secure your database.

3) Install PHP

Install PHP and required extensions:

sudo apt install php php-mysql libapache2-mod-php -y
sudo apt install php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-zip -y
sudo systemctl restart apache2

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5. Install WordPress

1) Download and Extract WordPress

cd /tmp
wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xvzf latest.tar.gz
sudo mv wordpress /var/www/html/

2) Set Permissions

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/wordpress
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/wordpress

3) Configure Apache for WordPress

Create and edit a new configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf

Add the following content:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/wordpress
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com

    <Directory /var/www/html/wordpress>
        AllowOverride All
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Activate the configuration:

sudo a2ensite wordpress
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl reload apache

4) Create a WordPress Database

Log in to MariaDB:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Execute the following SQL commands to create a database and user:

CREATE DATABASE wordpress DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_general_ci;
CREATE USER 'wpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'wpuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

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6. Update Apache Default Document Root

Edit the default Apache configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

Change the DocumentRoot to:

DocumentRoot /var/www/html/wordpres

Restart Apache:

sudo systemctl restart apache

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7. Run the WordPress Installation Wizard

1) Open your browser and navigate to:

http://<your-instance-external-ip>

2) Follow the WordPress installation wizard:

• Enter the database details:
  • Database Name: wordpress
  • Username: wpuser
  • Password: your_password
• Set up your site title, admin username, and password.

3) Complete the installation and log in to the WordPress admin dashboard.

• If wordpress pages doesn’t be called properly? It needs to set to read .htaccess file right.

Apache setting file

1) open Apache setting file

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

2) <Directory> section

add this script in the bottom.

<Directory /var/www/html>
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>

3) save and restart apache service.

sudo systemctl restart apache2