I have played that guide step by step. And I think in your case something went wrong and the file /etc/wordpress/config-localhost.php
is actually missing. But this isn't the worst thing. The manual is missing a step that describes how to create a MySQL database and user for WordPress - the final result. How to do that, under consideration scenario, is described in the article WordPress from the Official Ubuntu Documentation. Another approach is shown under the step 1 below.
However, in my opinion, the approach described in the aforementioned manuals makes the things more complicated than they actually are. Additionally, neither manual provides enough explanations to understand what is happening. Here's a guide for you:
How to install the latest WordPress on Ubuntu with LAMP
I'm updating this short manual time to time, so - the steps listed below are tested within Ubuntu 16.04, 20.04, 22.04 with the native installation of MySQL and/or MariaDB.
Pre-Requirements
The standard Ubuntu LAMP stack, that means we have working Apache2, MySQL, PHP. Refs:
Along with those additional PHP extensions, mod_rewrite
for Apache2 must also be enabled:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install libapache2-mod-php
sudo apt install php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-xmlrpc #php-mcrypt
sudo a2enmod rewrite php7.x
1. Create MySQL/MariaDB Database
The steps are:
- Login to the MySQL server from a terminal.
- Create Database.
- Create User.
- Grant all privileges on the Database to the User.
- Reload the privileges from the grant tables in the mysql database.
- Exit MySQL.
The commands are:
# for MySQL 5 Ubuntu 16.04
$ mysql -u'root' -p
mysql> CREATE DATABASE DataBaseName;
mysql> CREATE USER 'DataBaseUser'@'localhost' identified by 'DataBaseUserPassword';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DataBaseName.* TO 'DataBaseUser'@'localhost';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> exit
# for MySQL 8 Ubuntu 20.04/22.04
$ sudo mysql
mysql> CREATE DATABASE DataBaseName;
mysql> CREATE USER 'DataBaseUser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'DataBaseUserPassword';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DataBaseName.* TO 'DataBaseUser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> exit
# for MariaDB 10 Ubuntu 22.04
$ sudo mysql
MariaDB> CREATE DATABASE DataBaseName;
MariaDB> CREATE USER 'DataBaseUser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'DataBaseUserPassword';
MariaDB> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DataBaseName.* TO 'DataBaseUser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
MariaDB> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB> exit
Where DatabaseName
, DatabaseUser
and DatabaseUserPassword
are subject of your decision.
According to the example the User will be allowed to access the Database only from the localhost, this is enough (and safe) when Apache and MySQL servers are allocated to the same 'physical' machine.
Don't miss the semicolon (;
) at the end of each sentence. If you are on Ubuntu 18.04+, where the socket authentication is the default authentication method for MySQL, use sudo mysql
to login as root.
2.A. Download the latest WordPress release
The steps are:
Go to the directory where WordPress will be stored.
The directory used here is /var/www
- this is the default directory where the web content should be stored in current Ubuntu versions.
Download the latest release.
'UnZip' and 'UnTar' the package, then remove it.
Rename the folder. This step is not mandatory.
I usually use the same name for the installation directory, the name of the data base and the name of the virtual host config file. Also these names are based on the Domain Name if there is dedicated one.
Create upload
directory.
Create empty .htaccess
file.
WordPress will write some rewrite rules inside, depending on your preferences. For this purpose, this file must be writable (or owned) by www-data
, also mod_rewrite
must be enabled and the usage of the .htaccess
file must be allowed by the virtual host configuration - the directive AllowOverride All
.
Change the WordPress directory ownership.
WordPress has mechanisms for auto update and automatic installation of plugins, and I found that playing with permissions and ownership here is complicated task. In most manuals, the owner of WordPress's content is suggested as www-data
.
The commands are:
cd /var/www/
sudo wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
sudo tar xvfz latest.tar.gz && sudo rm ./latest.tar.gz*
sudo mv wordpress wordpress-custom-folder
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder/wp-content/uploads
sudo touch /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder/.htaccess
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder
2.B. Install WordPress from Ubuntu repositories
Another way to install WordPress is through Ubuntu repositories, like it is described here and here. But (in Ubuntu 16.04) the command apt show wordpress
shows that the version into the repo is 4.4.2 while the current version is 4.8.1. Because WP has an mechanism for automatic update, it will force you to update this outdated version to the latest one. So you will end up with 4.8, but after few steps of updates where something could go wrong.
The main advantage in this approach is that the installation process of WordPress will include some dependencies, as these, mentioned at the top of this post.
3.A. Setup Apache2: Create Virtual Host, dedicated to the particular WordPress
Follow this section if there is dedicated domain or sub-domain name and the WordPress site will be accessible via URL as: http://my-domain.com
or http://someprefix.my-domain.com
.
If you don't intend to run other sites in the near future, just edit 000-default.conf
instead of new Virtual Host creation.
If you don't have an registered domain name, but you want to access your WP site via domain name instead of IP address (or localhost), you can add the following line somewhere within the /etc/hosts
file (more details are provided in this answer):
127.0.0.1 my-domain.com someprefix.my-domain.com
Create and edit a new Virtual Host configuration file:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf
- The first part of the name of the configuration file -
wordpress.
- is subject to your decision.
The content of the file should look as this:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName someprefix.my-domain.com
ServerAlias my-domain.com
# If this is the default configuration file we can use: 'ServerName localhost' or also 'ServerAlias localhost'.
ServerAdmin [email protected]
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/someprefix.my-domain.com.error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/someprefix.my-domain.com.access.log combined
DocumentRoot /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder
<Directory /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder>
Options None FollowSymLinks
# Enable .htaccess Overrides:
AllowOverride All
DirectoryIndex index.php
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
Require all granted
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder/wp-content>
Options FollowSymLinks
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
- Copy the above content and use in
nano
: Shift+Insert for paste; Ctrl+O and Enter for save; Ctrl+X for exit.
Enable the configuration and restart Apache2:
sudo a2ensite wordpress.conf
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
3.B. Setup Apache2: Append WordPress to an existing Virtual Host
Follow this section if there is not a dedicated domain or sub-domain name and the WP site will be accessible via URL as: http://my-domain.com/my-blog
or http://localhost/my-blog
, etc.
Within the two mentioned manuals (this and this) WP is appended to all enabled Virtual Hosts.
Edit the existing Virtual Host configuration file in this way:
<VirtualHost ...>
.....
Alias /my-blog /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder
<Directory /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder>
Options None FollowSymLinks
# Enable .htaccess Overrides:
AllowOverride All
DirectoryIndex index.php
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
Require all granted
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder/wp-content>
Options FollowSymLinks
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Explanation about the directive Alias. Let's assume that DocumentRoot
is /var/www/html
. In this case, the directive Alias /my-blog /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder
will serve as this symbolic link:
ln -s /var/www/wordpress-custom-folder /var/www/html/my-blog
Enable the configuration (if it is not enabled) and restart Apache2:
sudo a2ensite 000-default.conf # or type the name of your configuration file
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
4. Proceed to the web installation of WordPress
Go to the URL http://someprefix.my-domain.com
or http://localhost/my-blog/
in your web browser. The WordPress installer will show up. The data about MySQL data base, created in step 1, must be provided there.
That's it.
Setup another instance
To run another instance of WP, just do the steps one more time and use unique data according to the new instance:
Create new Database. You can create and new MySQL User.
Download WP in new directory within /var/www
.
Create new Virtual Host if you using approach 3.A, or, if you using 3.B, setup new Alias
path and new <Directory>
definitions.
Proceed to the web installation of the new WP.
References
Further Reading