🚀 WordPress Hosting Cheatsheet: Self-Managed Server Deployment

WordPress Hosting Cheatsheet

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🔍 Pre-Deployment Checklist

1. Server Requirements

• Ubuntu 20.04/22.04 LTS
• 2+ vCPU, 4GB RAM, 20GB SSD (min)
• Static IP/Domain configured (nationnowsamachar.com)

1. Essential Tools

   sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
   sudo apt install git htop ufw snapd rsync unzip -y

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🌐 LAMP Stack Installation

1. Apache Web Server

sudo apt install apache2 -y
sudo systemctl enable apache2
sudo ufw allow "Apache Full"

2. MySQL Database

sudo apt install mysql-server -y
sudo mysql_secure_installation
# Follow prompts to set root password and secure DB

3. PHP Processing

sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql \
php-xml php-gd php-curl php-mbstring php-zip -y

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🛠️ WordPress Setup Workflow

1. Download WordPress

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

2. Deploy to Web Root

sudo rsync -avP /tmp/wordpress/ /var/www/html/yourdomain/

3. Configure Permissions

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/yourdomain
sudo find /var/www/html/yourdomain -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
sudo find /var/www/html/yourdomain -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

4. Create MySQL Database

CREATE DATABASE wp_db;
CREATE USER 'wp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword123!';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wp_db.* TO 'wp_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

5. Apache Virtual Host

/etc/apache2/sites-available/yourdomain.conf:

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

    <Directory /var/www/html/yourdomain>
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

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

sudo a2ensite yourdomain.conf
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

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🔒 SSL/TLS Configuration (HTTPS)

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache -y
sudo certbot --apache -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com
# Auto-renewal test:
sudo certbot renew --dry-run

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⚙️ Post-Installation Essentials

1. wp-config.php Setup

// ** MySQL settings ** //
define('DB_NAME', 'wp_db');
define('DB_USER', 'wp_user');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'StrongPassword123!');
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

// ** Security Keys ** //
define('AUTH_KEY',         'generate_unique_string');
// ... (get keys from: https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/)

2. File Permissions Best Practice

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/yourdomain/wp-content/uploads
sudo find /var/www/html/yourdomain -type d -exec chmod 750 {} \;
sudo find /var/www/html/yourdomain -type f -exec chmod 640 {} \;

3. Cron Job for Automation

# Daily DB backup
0 3 * * * mysqldump -u wp_user -p'password' wp_db > /backups/wp_db_$(date +\%F).sql

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🚨 Troubleshooting Toolkit

Symptom	Command
Permission Errors	sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/yourdomain
Site Not Loading	sudo tail -50 /var/log/apache2/error.log
Database Issues	sudo mysql -u root -p -e "SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS"
HTTPS Redirect Loop	sudo apachectl configtest && sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/yourdomain-le-ssl.conf
Plugin Conflicts	cd /var/www/html/yourdomain && mv wp-content/plugins plugins-old && mkdir plugins

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📚 Core Concepts Cheat Sheet

1. LAMP Architecture

• Linux: OS foundation
• Apache: Web server handling HTTP requests
• MySQL: Database for dynamic content
• PHP: Processing language for WordPress

1. Permission Philosophy

• www-data user owns files → Apache access
• 755 for directories (rwx for owner, rx for others)
• 644 for files (rw for owner, r for others)

1. Security Hierarchy

   graph LR
   A[Firewall] --> B[SSH Keys]
   B --> C[AppArmor/SELinux]
   C --> D[Regular Updates]
   D --> E[Backups]

4. WP-CLI Magic

   # Reset admin password
   wp user update admin --user_pass=NewStrongPass123!

   # Bulk replace URLs
   wp search-replace 'http://oldurl' 'https://newurl' --all-tables

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🔄 Deployment Automation Script

#!/bin/bash
# Usage: ./wp-deploy.sh domain.com db_password
DOMAIN=$1
DB_PASS=$2

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xzf latest.tar.gz
sudo rsync -av wordpress/ /var/www/html/$DOMAIN/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/$DOMAIN

mysql -u root -p <<MYSQL_SCRIPT
CREATE DATABASE ${DOMAIN//./_};
CREATE USER '${DOMAIN//./_}'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '$DB_PASS';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ${DOMAIN//./_}.* TO '${DOMAIN//./_}'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MYSQL_SCRIPT

certbot --apache -d $DOMAIN -d www.$DOMAIN --non-interactive
echo "✅ Deployment complete! Access: https://$DOMAIN"

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📈 Monitoring & Maintenance

1. Cockpit Dashboard

   sudo apt install cockpit
   sudo systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket
   sudo ufw allow 9090

Access: https://yourserver:9090

2. Essential Cron Jobs

   # Weekly WP updates
   0 4 * * 1 cd /var/www/html/yourdomain && wp core update && wp plugin update --all

   # Security scans
   30 2 * * * sudo lynis audit system

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Pro Tip: Always test deployments in staging environment! Use rsync -avP staging:/var/www/html/staging/ /var/www/html/prod/ for zero-downtime updates.