How to Install WordPress with LEMP Stack on Ubuntu 24.04

Why LEMP over LAMP?

The traditional LAMP stack uses Apache as the web server. While stable, Apache creates a new process for every connection. LEMP uses Nginx (pronounced Engine-X), which uses an asynchronous, event-driven architecture, making it significantly faster at handling thousands of concurrent connections.

Prerequisites

• A fresh AmanaFlow Unmanaged Linux VPS running Ubuntu 24.04.
• Root access via SSH.
• A registered domain name pointing to your VPS IP address.

---

Step 1: Install Nginx

Log into your server and update your package lists:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install nginx -y

Enable Nginx to start on boot:

sudo systemctl enable nginx
sudo systemctl start nginx

Step 2: Install MariaDB

MariaDB is a community-developed, drop-in replacement for MySQL that offers better performance.

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client -y
sudo mysql_secure_installation

(Press Y to all security prompts and set a strong root password).

Step 3: Install PHP 8.3

WordPress requires PHP. We will install php-fpm (FastCGI Process Manager) because Nginx doesn't process PHP natively.

sudo apt install php8.3-fpm php8.3-mysql php8.3-curl php8.3-gd php8.3-mbstring php8.3-xml php8.3-xmlrpc -y

Step 4: Configure Nginx for WordPress

Create a new configuration file for your domain (/etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com):

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/yourdomain.com;
    index index.php index.html index.htm;

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

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

Enable the site block:

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

---

---

Step 5: Download WordPress

cd /tmp
wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xvzf latest.tar.gz
sudo mv wordpress/* /var/www/yourdomain.com/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/yourdomain.com/

Now, navigate to your domain in the browser to complete the famous 5-minute WordPress installation.

FAQs

Q: Do I need a firewall?
A: Yes, absolutely. Run sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full' and sudo ufw allow OpenSSH before enabling UFW.