How to Install WordPress on Ubuntu Server (Nginx, PHP and MariaDB)

WordPress runs about forty percent of the web, and hosting it yourself costs nothing beyond the server you already have. You need three things it sits on — Nginx (tutorial 26), MariaDB (tutorial 29) and PHP — and then WordPress itself is a folder of files and a five-minute web installer.

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

php -v shows the version (8.x). Note it — the Nginx config refers to it.

Raise the upload limit while you're here, in /etc/php/8.3/fpm/php.ini (adjust the version):

upload_max_filesize = 64M
post_max_size = 64M
memory_limit = 256M

sudo systemctl restart php8.3-fpm

sudo mysql

CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
CREATE USER 'wp'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'a-strong-password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'wp'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit;

cd /tmp
curl -O https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xzf latest.tar.gz
sudo mv wordpress /var/www/example.com
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/example.com

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com

server {
listen 80;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
root /var/www/example.com;
index index.php;
client_max_body_size 64M;

location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
}

location ~ /\.ht { deny all; }
}

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

Open http://example.com (or the server's IP if you've put it in your hosts file). Choose a language, then enter the database name, user and password from step 2, host localhost. Then your site title, admin username (not "admin") and a strong password.

Done. Log in at /wp-admin.

sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com

Then in WordPress, Settings → General, change both URLs to https://.

Settings → Permalinks → Post name. The try_files line in the Nginx config is what makes pretty URLs work.

Downloads the PHP file instead of running it. The location ~ .php$ block isn't matching or PHP-FPM isn't running. sudo systemctl status php8.3-fpm, and check the socket path matches ls /run/php/.

"Error establishing a database connection." Wrong credentials, or the user was made as @'%' not @'localhost'. Test with mysql -u wp -p wordpress.

Can't install plugins / asked for FTP details. Ownership. sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/example.com.

Uploads fail with "exceeds the maximum". Raise it in all three places: php.ini, client_max_body_size in Nginx, and restart both.

White screen. Add define('WP_DEBUG', true); to wp-config.php to see the error, or check /var/log/nginx/error.log.

PHP, a database, the WordPress files owned by www-data, an Nginx block with the PHP location, and the installer does the rest. Add Certbot and you have a properly hosted site for the price of the electricity.