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Build a WordPress Website

2024-04-15

Build a WordPress Website on Carpathian

Launch a full-featured WordPress site using your Carpathian cloud instance with nothing but terminal access. This guide walks you through every step—no cPanel, no GUI—just clean console commands on a provisioned VM.

⚠️ Important Notes Before You Start

When you provision a new server with the public website role in Carpathian:

  • Apache2 is pre-installed and running by default. You'll need to disable it to prevent conflicts with the port-forwarding gateway.

  • If you can see the Carpathian Test Page at your domain, then:

    • ✅ Public domain routing is working
    • ✅ TLS certificates are issued automatically
    • ✅ Port 80 and 443 traffic is forwarded to your vm

You do not need to configure NGINX on the VM itself — all public-facing proxy and TLS termination is already handled upstream.

1. Provision Your VM

From the Carpathian dashboard:

  • Go to Cloud Servers → Provision Server
  • Select the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS base image
  • Once it's finished provisioning, click Web Servers
  • Add your domain name and provision website

Once it’s finished, click the Console button to access your server directly on the Cloud Servers tab.

2. Remove Apache2

Disable Apache2 to avoid conflicts with the gateway:

systemctl stop apache2
systemctl disable apache2
apt remove -y apache2 apache2-utils apache2-bin apache2.2-common

3. Update the System

Update the server and install basic tools:

apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install -y unzip curl git ufw

4. Install PHP

WordPress requires PHP and extensions:

apt install -y php-fpm php-mysql php-cli php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-zip

Check PHP is working:

php -v

5. Install MySQL

Install MySQL server:

apt install -y mysql-server

Run the security script:

mysql_secure_installation

Then log in and set up the WordPress DB:

mysql -u root -p

Inside the MySQL shell:

CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
CREATE USER 'wpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strongpassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'wpuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

6. Download and Configure WordPress

Download the latest version:

cd /var/www
curl -O https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xvzf latest.tar.gz
rm latest.tar.gz

Copy and edit the config:

cp wordpress/wp-config-sample.php wordpress/wp-config.php
nano wordpress/wp-config.php

Set your DB values:

define( 'DB_NAME', 'wordpress' );
define( 'DB_USER', 'wpuser' );
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'strongpassword' );

7. Set File Permissions

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

8. Register Your Site

Since your domain is already routed by Carpathian's public gateway:

  • Open your browser and go to your assigned domain (or IP)
  • You should see the WordPress install screen
  • Complete the setup: site name, username, password, etc.

✅ Done

You now have a secure, routed, and fully functional WordPress site running inside your Carpathian VM — no NGINX setup required.

Carpathian’s infrastructure automatically handles:

  • TLS termination
  • Public routing and port forwarding via gateway VMs
  • Test page validation to confirm domain reachability

To customize NGINX headers or caching, please reach out to support.