Installing WordPress on EC2 using Bitnami package

Chris Mendez -

I've spent many years installing and configuring WordPress blogs on EC2, and here's generally how things start.

Manual Install

First download these tools:

# Apache2    => httpd
# PHP        => php
# MySQL Ext  => php-mysql
# MySQL      => mysql-server
# SSL Module => mod_ssl
# OpenSSL    => openssl

Log in as Super User

sudo su

Use Yum package manager to start installing these LAMP stack apps.

yum install httpd php php-mysql mysql-server mod_ssl openssl

From there, I then have to configure Apache, PHP, MySQL, SSL to then get around to these commands:

Download WordPress

wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Unpack WordPress

tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz

For those of you who want me to write a post about doing a manual install, please comment below. Otherwise, here's a right, reliable way to install WordPress using a Bitnami pre-packaged cartridge.

One-Click Install

Step 0 - Register for AWS

Register for Amazon Web Services.

Step 1 - Install Bitnami

Install this Bitnami marketplace package.

Once you install WordPress, review your Bitnami system logs found in EC2 system logs.

Go to Actions > Instance Settings > > Get System Log to find the auto-generated password. This password is what you will use to log into the WordPress Admin.

Scroll down until you see something like this.

This password is how you access the WordPress admin portal.

# http://www.mywebsite.com/wp-login.php
User: user
Pass: < password found in Bitnami System Logs>

Step 2 - Create a PEM

While installing the package, create a <key name>.pem file and download it to your local computer. This is the key you will use to ssh into your app.

Step 3 - Modify the PEM permissions

Change the permissions on the .pem file

chmod 600 /path/to/<keyname>.pem

Step 4 - SSH into EC2

SSH into your EC2 instance

ssh -i ~/path/to/<key name>.pem bitnami@ip.address

sudo /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/bnconfig --disable_banner 1

Step 6 - Change your WordPress site URL

sudo /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/bnconfig --machine_hostname <sub.domain.extension>

WordPress Permissions

If WordPress ever tells you to update your permissions for /uploads, here is how to do it.

sudo chown -R daemon:daemon /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs/wp-content/uploads

Part 2 - Manually Installing SSL

The next entry will help you manually install an SSL certificate from GoDaddy.

Read More

Troubleshooting

Getting WordPress Admin Password (Alt Method)

If you are having a hard time finding the default password to the WordPress Admin, the second option is to SSH into your EC2 instance and type within the command-line:

cat bitnami_application_password

Related

If you want to do more things to your Bitnami install, read these:

Resources