Setup WordPress WooCommerce with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04

We previously showed you how to setup WordPress WooCommerce plugin with Apache2 support. This post shows you how to use Nginx HTTP instead. and will show you how to get WooCommerce plugin with WordPress.

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that turns a standard WordPress website into self-hosted online store.  This tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install WordPress and enable WooCommerce plugin to create an online store to sell your products or services.

The installation process should be fairly simple and straightforward. and should take only a few minutes to complete even for students and new users.

You will learn how to install WordPress with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.2, enable WooCommerce Plugin and start selling your products.

To get started with installing WordPres and WooCommerce, continue with the steps below:

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server on Ubuntu

Nginx HTTP Server is the second most popular web server in use. so install it, since WordPress CMS needs it.

To install Nginx HTTP on Ubuntu server, run the commands below.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Nginx service to always start up with the server boots.

sudo systemctl stop nginx.service
sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

To test Nginx setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see Nginx default test page as shown below. When you see that, then Nginx is working as expected.

Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server

MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open source database servers to use with Magento. To install MariaDB run the commands below.

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to always start up when the server boots.

Run these on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

sudo systemctl stop mysql.service
sudo systemctl start mysql.service
sudo systemctl enable mysql.service

Run these on Ubuntu 17.10 and 18.04 LTS

sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

After that, run the commands below to secure MariaDB server by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

  • Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
  • Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
  • New password: Enter password
  • Re-enter new password: Repeat password
  • Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
  • Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
  • Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]:  Y
  • Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]:  Y

Restart MariaDB server

To test if MariaDB is installed, type the commands below to logon to MariaDB server

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then type the password you created above to sign on. if successful, you should see MariaDB welcome message

mariadb welcome

Step 3: Install PHP 7.2-FPM and Related Modules

PHP 7.2-FPM may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories. in order to install it, you will have to get it from third-party repositories.

Run the commands below to add the below third party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.2-FPM

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2-FPM

sudo apt update

Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules.

sudo apt install php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-mysql php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-zip

After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open PHP default config file for Nginx.

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

Then make the changes on the following lines below in the file and save. The value below are great settings to apply in your environments.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

After making the change above, save the file and close out.

Step 4: Restart Nginx

After installing PHP and related modules, all you have to do is restart Nginx to reload PHP configurations.

To restart Nginx, run the commands below

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Step 5: Create WordPress Database

At this point, all the required WordPress packages and and servers are installed. The new server  is now ready to host WordPress… On the new server, create a blank WordPress database.

Run the commands below to logon to the database server. When prompted for a password, type the root password you created above.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a blank database called wp_database .

CREATE DATABASE wp_database;

Create a database user called wp_user with new password.

CREATE USER 'wp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'type_password_here';

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON wp_database.* TO 'wp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'type_user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 6: Configure WordPress Site

Next, configure the WordPress site configuration file on the server. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called wordpress

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress

Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace example.com with your own domain name.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/html/wordpress;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

     client_max_body_size 100M;

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

    location ~ \.php$ {
    include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
    fastcgi_pass      unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

Step 7: Enable WordPress Nginx Site

After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below. then restart Nginx and PHP7.2-FPM.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
sudo systemctl restart php7.2-fpm.service

Step 8: Downlaod WordPRess Content

Next, visit WordPress site and download the latest…. or run the commands below to do that for you.

cd /tmp && wget 
tar -zxvf latest.tar.gz
sudo mv wordpress /var/www/html/wordpress

Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for WordPress root directory.

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

Step 9: Configure WordPress

Next, run the commands below to create WordPress wp-config.php file. This is the default configuration file for WordPress.

sudo mv /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-config.php

Then run the commands below to open WordPress configuration file.

sudo nano /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-config.php

Enter the highlighted text below that you created for your database and save.

// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'wp_database');

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'wp_user');

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'new_password_here');

/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');

/** The Database Collate type. Don't change this if in doubt. */
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

Save the file and you’re done.

Now all is configured… run the commands below to reload Nginx web server settings.

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

After that, open your browser and browse to the server IP address or domain name to continue with WordPress setup.

If everything is setup correctly, you’ll see WordPress setup wizard and continue with the setup.

ubuntu wordpress lets encrypt

Follow the on-screen instruction to complete the wizard. you’ll have to create the site administrator account with password. then use it to logon to WordPress dashboard to manage WordPress.

/wp-admin/

When you logon to WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins –> Add New   Then search for WooCommerce and click Install Now

woocommerce_wordpress

After installing, Activate. After activating, the plugin should automatically start the setup wizard. follow the on-screen instruction

woocommerce wordpress

Continue until the setup is complete. After that, you can begin setting up your products to sell online

woocommerce

Enjoy!

woocommerce plugin

This is how to get WooCommerce plugin setup with WordPress support.

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