Installing Wordpress on Ubuntu 18.04 Using LEMP Stack

Installing wordpress on LEMP stack is not much different from installing in LAMP stack. For those who do not know, LEMP stands for Linux + Nginx + Mariadb + PHP stack, and LAMP stands for Linux + Apache + Mariadb/mysql + PHP stack. Check out my other post on how to install wordpress on LAMP stack on ubuntu.

As per the stack definition, there are 3 main components to be installed: nginx, mariadb and php.

Install nginx:
$ sudo apt install nginx -y

Install mariadb:
$ sudo apt install mariadb-server -y

Install php, php-mysql and php-fpm
$ sudo apt install php php-mysql php-fpm -y

Download wordpress code
$ wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Start mariadb
$ sudo systemctl start mariadb

Secure mariadb installation
$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

Create a database for wordpress
$ sudo mariadb -u root
MariaDB [none]> create database wpdb;
MariaDB [none]> grant all on wpdb.* to wpuser@localhost identified by 'wppassword';
MariaDB [none]> flush privileges;
MariaDB [none]> exit

Test the newly created user and db
$ mariadb -u wpuser -p wpdb
MariaDB [wpdb]> exit

Download wordpress
$ wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Extract wordpress
$ tar -xvf latest.tar.gz

Move wordpress directory to /var/www/html
$ sudo mv wordpress /var/www/html

Change ownership of the wordpress directory
$ sudo chown -R www-data /var/www/html/wordpress

Create nginx virtualhost configuration for wordpress
$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/wordpress.conf

Add in below code (change the server name to refer to your ip address, since we do not have any domain at the moment)
server {
        listen   80;

        root /var/www/html/wordpress;
        index index.php index.html;
        server_name wordpress.10.0.0.5.nip.io;

        location / {
                try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$request_uri;
        }

        error_page 404 /404.html;
        error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
        location = /50x.html {
              root /usr/share/nginx/www;
        }

        location ~ .php$ {
                try_files $uri =404;
                fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
                fastcgi_index index.php;
                fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
                include fastcgi_params;
        }
}

Save the file and exit

Test nginx config for any syntax error

$ sudo nginx -t

Start nginx

$ sudo systemctl start nginx

Start php-fpm

$ sudo systemctl start php7.2-fpm

Open a web browser and put in you server_name address in the address bar, and you should be able to get the wordpress installation wizard. Press "Continue"

Press "Let's go!"

Fill up database details and press "Submit"

If everything is correct, you will get to "Run the installation" page. Click on "Run the installation" button. 

Fill up the necessary information for your wordpress blog, and click "Install wordpress" to finish wordpress installation