Building a Scalable WordPress Website with AWS EC2, RDS, and Apache Webserver
What is WordPress ?
WordPress (WP, WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to within WordPress as Themes. WordPress was originally created as a blog-publishing system but has evolved to support other web content types including more traditional mailing lists and forums, media galleries, membership sites, learning management systems (LMS) and online stores.
To function, WordPress has to be installed on a web server, either part of an Internet hosting service like WordPress.com or a computer running the software package WordPress.org in order to serve as a network host in its own right.
WordPress
What is Amazon RDS ?
Amazon RDS is a service which provides database connectivity through the Internet. RDS makes it very simple and easy to set-up a relational database in the cloud.
Instead of concentrating on database features, you can concentrate more on the application to provide high availability, security, and compatibility. RDS is a fully managed RDBMS service.
Benefits of Amazon RDS
Database Engines
There are six database engines which RDS provides, and they are:
- Amazon Aurora
- PostgreSQL
- MySQL
- MariaDB
- Oracle Database
- Microsoft SQL Server
Task Overview
🔅 Create an AWS EC2 instance
🔅 Configure the instance with Apache Webserver.
🔅 Download PHP application name “WordPress”.
🔅 As WordPress stores data at the backend in MySQL Database server. Therefore, you need to setup a MySQL server using AWS RDS service using Free Tier.
🔅 Provide the endpoint/connection string to the WordPress application to make it work.
Task Description
Let’s Begin the Task !!
Pre-requisites
- Must have account on aws
Now we are ready to go ..
Step 1 : Create an AWS EC2 instance
Login to AWS Account.
Go to EC2 Dashboard ->> instances ->> Launch Instance
Click on Launch Instances
a) Select an AMI. Here I am selecting Amazon Linux 2 AMI.
Select AMI
b) Click next and Select the Instance Type. I’ll go for default one.
Select Instance Type
c) Configure Instance Details
Instance Details
d) Add Storage
Add Storage
e) Add Tags
Here we can create multiple tags like name, env etc. These tags are helpful to specify the instance.
Add Tags
f) Configure Security Group — Here I am adding one more rule for HTTP and allowing everyone to connect with the instance.
Note: It is not a good practice to allow everyone. We must create custom rules for the security of our instances.
( I have done this just for the demo )
Add Security Group
g) Review and Launch
Now, If we want to connect with this instance using the ssh protocol we need a key so here I am attaching an existing key. You can create a new one.
Attaching key
Here we can see, the instance is up !!
Instance launched
So the step 1 is done. Now move to the step 2 ..
Step 2 : Configure the instance with Apache Webserver
Let’s connect with the instance. There are so many ways to connect with the instance
- Using the browser
- Using ssh
- Using the software like putty etc.
Here I am using the first way. You can choose any one of the above.
Connect to the instance
Note: All the images do not provide this option to connect.
Currently we login as ec2-user. This user doesn’t have the admin power so to switch with root user, run the below command
sudo su -Let’s Configure Apache Webserver !!
a) Install the Software
yum install httpd -yb) Start the service and make it permanent
systemctl start httpd
systemctl enable httpdHere we can see, it is successfully configured
Home Page of Apache webserver
Step 3 : Download PHP application name “WordPress”.
Requirements
- PHP version 7.4 or greater.
- MYSQL version 5.6 or greater OR MariaDB version 10.1 or greater.
- HTTPS support
- Install PHP
To install php on Amazon Linux 2, we have to first install amazon-linux-extras package. ( By default, it is installed )
yum install -y amazon-linux-extras
Enable PHP 7.4 package
amazon-linux-extras enable php7.4Now install PHP packages from the repository.
yum clean metadata yum install php php-{pear,cgi,common,curl,mbstring,gd,mysqlnd,gettext,bcmath,json,xml,fpm,intl,zip,imap}We can see the installed version of PHP using the below command
php -v2. Download and extract the software
wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz
Download and extract the software
3. Upload the WordPress files in the root directory of webserver
Note: Here I am using Apache webserver so the root directory of the webserver is /var/www/html
cp -r wordpress/* /var/www/html/
WordPress is installed !!
We can check it by go to the url
http://<public_ip_of_server>/wp-admin/install.php
Successfully Installed
Here it will ask for the Database Information so we need to create a DataBase.
I am creating MYSQL Database using AWS RDS, you can use MariaDB or other databases also as per the requirement.
Step 4: Setup a MySQL server using AWS RDS service using Free Tier.
Go to AWS RDS Service →> Create Database
AWS RDS
Select MariaDB Engine
Different Engines
Templates ->> Free Tier ( You can select as per your requirement )
Settings ->> Set the Database name, Database User Name and the password
DB Info
Note: Whatever password you set for database, it should be remembered. As we need it in the future.
Give database a name !
- Public Accessibility — yes
- Security Group — AllowAll ( You can customize it )
I Go for the default settings and create the Database for this task.
Database
Our database is created. We’ll use this endpoint to connect with wordpress.
Step 5: Provide the endpoint/connection string to the WordPress application to make it work.
DB Info
Or we can manually write these information in the wp-config-sample.php file and rename this file with wp-config.php
mv wp-config-sample.php wp-config.phpSet Some Basic Information and click on the Installation.
After Successfully Login you will see the Dashboard of WordPress
Dashboard
Now we can write the blogs and post them.
Test Blog
I hope you find this Article is helpful