Run Your Own Instance of Wordpress on AWS.

By Igor Urisman

This repository contains all you need to deploy and run a production-ready instance of Wordpress on AWS

This README presumes basic familiarity with AWS and the AWS Console.

1. Building the Amazon Machine Image (AMI).

1.1 Install Hashicorp Packer.

1.2 Change current directory to ami. Edit aws-wp-ubuntu.hcl with your details.

1.3 Pull the Hashicorp aws plugin for ubuntu:

$ packer install .

1.4 Build the AMI:

$ packer build aws-wp-ubuntu.pkr.hcl 2>&1 > build.log 

This will build the wordpress-ubuntu AMI with everything installed. Inspect the log file for errors with less -R.

2. Initializing a New Wordpress Server

2.1 Launch an EC2 instance from AMI wordpress-ubuntu built in step 1. Be sure to use an SSH keypair and to choose a security group that allows SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS inbound traffic and all outbound traffic.

2.2 SSH onto the instance with

$ ssh -i /path/to/private/key ubuntu@<public-ip-address>

2.3 Create an Elastic IP Address and associate it with the running instance. If you're restoring from a backup, reuse the Elastic IP Address from the server you're restoring.

2.4 Update your domain's DNS A for mydomain.com (and likely CNAME for www.mydomain.com) records. Skip this step if you're restoring from a backup.

2.5 Once the DNS change has propagated, create an SSL certificate:

$ sudo certbot --apache

Enter both mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com.

2.6 Setup the Wordpress database schema by running

$ bin/schema.sh

Since this is a new MySQL instance, you will be prompted to created passwords for two database users: The user root is the superuser account that will be (optionally) used for database backups. The user wp_user is the account who will own the wp database required by Wordpress. You may edit the script before running it if you'd rather use different names for the Wordpress database or account.

2.7 Point your browser to the EC2 instance at mydomain.com.

You must be connected via HTTPS (the lock icon visible in the browser's URL bar) to proceed with the installation of Wordpress. Otherwise, wordpress installation will use the non-secure self address and Wordpress will stop working and the installation of the SSL certificate.

This will bring the Wordpress language dialog: Chose your language and press Continue

2.8 This will bring the Wordpress setup dialog:

2.9 Press Let's Go. On the next page, enter the following information:

Database Name     `wp`
Username          `wp_user`
Password          The database user password you entered in step 2.3.
Database Host     Leave the default `localhost`
Table Prefix      Leve the default `wp_`

3. Optional Post-Installation Steps

3.1. Periodic Status Check

3.2. Periodic Backups

To setup the backups edit the crontab file:

crontab -e

adding the following line:

35 7 * * * ./bin/backup.sh /var/www/html <mysql-user> <mysql-password> <s3-bucket> > backup.log 2>&1

<wordpress-root-directory> is typically /var/www/html

<mysql-user> is typically root, unless you edited schema.sh.

3.3. Restoring from a Backup

NB: The Site URL is saved in Wordpress database as a general setting. The process below will only work for restoring for the same domain name.

1. Launch a fresh EC2 instance from the Wordpress AMI built in Section 1 and ssh to it.
2. Copy the latest ZIP backup from S3:

aws s3 cp <S3-URL> .

3. Unzip

unzip site-backup-<date>.zip 

This will inflate 2 files: the wordpress backup TAR archive and the MySQL export SQL file. 4. Untar the wordpress backup and simply move the var/www/html to /var/www/ 5. Before you can run the mysql restore, repeate step 2.6 to create the root mysql account Then run

mysql -u root --password=root-password < mysqldump.sql

6. Repeat steps ...

5. Advanced Topics

5.1. Site monitoring

5.2. Running muliple sites from the same server. (TBD)