{"id":478,"date":"2016-04-18T23:02:40","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T15:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techcoil.com\/blog\/?p=478"},"modified":"2018-09-04T23:20:17","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T15:20:17","slug":"setting-up-a-lemp-web-server-on-raspberry-pi-3-with-an-ubuntu-server-15-10-3-image-to-host-a-wordpress-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techcoil.com\/blog\/setting-up-a-lemp-web-server-on-raspberry-pi-3-with-an-ubuntu-server-15-10-3-image-to-host-a-wordpress-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting up a LEMP web server on Raspberry Pi 3 with an Ubuntu Server 15.10.3 image to host a WordPress website"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was trying to start a new WordPress site. Before hosting it on a Digital Ocean<\/a> droplet, I decided to incubate the WordPress site on a Raspberry Pi 3<\/a> to clock some content. This post documents the steps that I took to set up a LEMP<\/a> web server on Raspberry Pi 3 with an Ubuntu server 15.10.3 image to host a new WordPress site.<\/p>\n

Getting the hardware that I need for my Raspberry Pi 3 LEMP web server<\/h2>\n

The hardware for this project is pretty straightforward - I got myself the following items:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A Raspberry Pi 3 motherboard<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. A PiBlox LEGO\u00ae Compatible Case<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. A SanDisk Ultra 32GB microSDHC UHS-I Card with Adapter<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Since my laptop came with a SD card reader, I do not have to get a SD card reader<\/a>. <\/p>\n

    Getting the Ubuntu Server 15.10.3 image for my Raspberry Pi 3 onto the micro SD card<\/h2>\n

    After I got the hardware that I need, the next step was to get the Ubuntu Server 15.10.3 image for my Raspberry Pi 3. The awesome folks at Ubuntu Pi Flavour Maker<\/a> had made a few variations of Ubuntu images available for me to download<\/a>. <\/p>\n

    I downloaded a copy of the Ubuntu Server Standard 15.10.3 image onto my windows machine via torrent. <\/p>\n

    Once I got the .xz file, I used 7-zip<\/a> to extract the .img file. I then used Win32 Disk Imager to write the .img file<\/a> into the SanDisk microSD card<\/a> via the SD card drive on my laptop.<\/p>\n

    Booting into Ubuntu Server 15.10.3 on my Raspberry Pi 3<\/h2>\n

    Once Win32 Disk Imager completed writing the Ubuntu Server 15.10.3 image onto my SanDisk microSD card<\/a>, I removed it from my SD card reader and inserted it to the SD card slot on the Raspberry Pi 3 motherboard. Note that unlike the Raspberry Pi 2, the microSD slot of the Raspberry Pi 3 motherboard is not a spring loaded one.<\/strong> This means that you just push to insert your microSD card and pull to remove your microSD card.<\/p>\n

    I then attached my trusty mouse<\/a>, keyboard<\/a>, monitor<\/a>, a RJ45 network cable from my DLink router and my old samsung charger to my Raspberry Pi 3 motherboard. After turning on the power, the login screen appears. The default username is ubuntu<\/strong> and the password is ubuntu<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    Adding a new user<\/h2>\n

    I do not like a default username for my web server, even though it is not going to be used as the production server. Hence, I first added a new user via the command as follows:<\/p>\n

    \r\nsudo adduser techcoil\r\n<\/pre>\n
    I then went through the following Q and As:<\/p>\n
    \r\nAdding user `techcoil' ...\r\nAdding new group `techcoil' (1000) ...\r\nAdding new user `techcoil' (1000) with group `techcoil' ...\r\nCreating home directory `\/home\/techcoil' ...\r\nCopying files from `\/etc\/skel' ...\r\nEnter new UNIX password: \r\nRetype new UNIX password: \r\npasswd: password updated successfully\r\nChanging the user information for techcoil\r\nEnter the new value, or press ENTER for the default\r\n\tFull Name []: Techcoil\r\n\tRoom Number []: #1234\r\n\tWork Phone []: 12345678\r\n\tHome Phone []: 12345678\r\n\tOther []: 12345678\r\n<\/pre>\n
    After I had created my new user account, I proceeded to add it to the sudo group so that I was able to continue with installing the necessary software:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo adduser techcoil sudo\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Deleting the default user<\/h2>\n
    Once I had created my user, I proceeded to delete the default user. <\/p>\n
    I first restarted the server:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo reboot\r\n<\/pre>\n
    After the server booted up again, I logged in with my new user.<\/p>\n
    I typed the following in the terminal to delete the default user:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo deluser --remove-home ubuntu\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Installing Nginx on my Ubuntu Server 15.10.3<\/h2>\n
    I installed Nginx with the following command:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo apt-get install nginx\r\n<\/pre>\n
    After the installation had completed, I ran the following command:<\/p>\n
    \r\ncurl -0 localhost\r\n<\/pre>\n
    And got the following output:<\/p>\n
    \r\n<!DOCTYPE html>\r\n<html>\r\n<head>\r\n<title>Welcome to nginx!<\/title>\r\n<style>\r\n    body {\r\n        width: 35em;\r\n        margin: 0 auto;\r\n        font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;\r\n    }\r\n<\/style>\r\n<\/head>\r\n<body>\r\n<h1>Welcome to nginx!<\/h1>\r\n<p>If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and\r\nworking. Further configuration is required.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>For online documentation and support please refer to\r\n<a href="http:\/\/nginx.org\/">nginx.org<\/a>.<br\/>\r\nCommercial support is available at\r\n<a href="http:\/\/nginx.com\/">nginx.com<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><em>Thank you for using nginx.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<\/body>\r\n<\/html>\r\n<\/pre>\n
    This output assured me that my Nginx web server was successfully installed.<\/p>\n
    Installing the MySQL database server on my Ubuntu Server 15.10.3<\/h2>\n
    I then proceeded to install the MySQL database server for my WordPress site.<\/p>\n
    To do so, I typed the following in the terminal:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client\r\n<\/pre>\n
    This led to the screen to enter a password for the root user:
    \n\"Password<\/p>\n
    And the screen to repeat the password for the root user:
    \n\"Password<\/p>\n
    I verified my MySQL database installation by entering the command:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo systemctl status mysql\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Which produced the following output:<\/p>\n
    \r\n\u25cf mysql.service - MySQL Community Server\r\n   Loaded: loaded (\/lib\/systemd\/system\/mysql.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)\r\n   Active: active (running) since Wed 2016-04-06 12:10:25 UTC; 15min ago\r\n Main PID: 4534 (mysqld_safe)\r\n   CGroup: \/system.slice\/mysql.service\r\n           \u251c\u25004534 \/bin\/sh \/usr\/bin\/mysqld_safe\r\n           \u2514\u25004881 \/usr\/sbin\/mysqld --basedir=\/usr --datadir=\/var\/lib\/mysql --...\r\n\r\nApr 06 12:10:23 ubuntu-standard systemd[1]: Starting MySQL Community Server...\r\nApr 06 12:10:24 ubuntu-standard mysqld_safe[4534]: 160406 12:10:24 mysqld_saf...\r\nApr 06 12:10:24 ubuntu-standard mysqld_safe[4534]: 160406 12:10:24 mysqld_saf...\r\nApr 06 12:10:24 ubuntu-standard mysqld_safe[4534]: 160406 12:10:24 mysqld_saf...\r\nApr 06 12:10:25 ubuntu-standard systemd[1]: Started MySQL Community Server.\r\nHint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.\r\n<\/pre>\n
    With that, I got myself a MySQL database server and a root account for the database related tasks later on. <\/p>\n
    Installing PHP<\/h2>\n
    The final part of the LEMP stack was PHP. I would need to install, the PHP binary, the PHP Fast Process Manager and the PHP MySQL driver. To do so, I entered the following command:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo apt-get install php5 php5-fpm php5-mysql\r\n<\/pre>\n
    After the installation had completed, I entered the following command:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo systemctl status php5-fpm\r\n<\/pre>\n
    And got the following verification:<\/p>\n
    \r\n\u25cf php5-fpm.service - The PHP FastCGI Process Manager\r\n   Loaded: loaded (\/lib\/systemd\/system\/php5-fpm.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)\r\n   Active: active (running) since Wed 2016-04-06 12:52:55 UTC; 4min 59s ago\r\n Main PID: 7300 (php5-fpm)\r\n   Status: "Processes active: 0, idle: 2, Requests: 0, slow: 0, Traffic: 0req\/sec"\r\n   CGroup: \/system.slice\/php5-fpm.service\r\n           \u251c\u25007300 php-fpm: master process (\/etc\/php5\/fpm\/php-fpm.conf)\r\n           \u251c\u25007302 php-fpm: pool www\r\n           \u2514\u25007303 php-fpm: pool www\r\n\r\nApr 06 12:52:55 ubuntu-standard systemd[1]: Starting The PHP FastCGI Process....\r\nApr 06 12:52:55 ubuntu-standard systemd[1]: Started The PHP FastCGI Process ....\r\nApr 06 12:52:58 ubuntu-standard systemd[1]: Started The PHP FastCGI Process ....\r\nHint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Getting a copy of WordPress<\/h2>\n
    After I had installed the main pieces of the LEMP stack, I went on to get a copy of WordPress from the internet.  <\/p>\n
    I got into the \/var\/www directory that was created when I installed the Nginx server:<\/p>\n
    \r\ncd \/var\/www\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Once I got into that directory, I downloaded the latest WordPress files:<\/p>\n
    \r\nwget https:\/\/wordpress.org\/latest.tar.gz\r\n<\/pre>\n
    After the download had completed, I extracted the \"wordpress\" directory from the downloaded file:<\/p>\n
    \r\ntar xvfz latest.tar.gz\r\n<\/pre>\n
    When the \"wordpress\" directory had been extracted, I deleted the tar file:<\/p>\n
    \r\nrm latest.tar.gz\r\n<\/pre>\n
    I then changed the name of the \"wordpress\" directory to a name which I like:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo mv wordpress my_new_wordpress_site\r\n<\/pre>\n
    With that, my \"\/var\/www\" folder contained a directory named as \"my_new_wordpress_site\". This would be the folder which I configure Nginx to get PHP FPM to look into when serving HTTP requests directed at my new WordPress site.  <\/p>\n
    Configuring Nginx web server to serve HTTP requests for the WordPress site<\/h2>\n
    It was relatively straightforward to configure the Nginx to serve HTTP requests for the WordPress site as WordPress provides a good guide<\/a> on doing so. <\/p>\n
    Creating the set of common files<\/h4>\n
    I created a folder \"global\" inside of \"\/etc\/nginx\" folder:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo mkdir \/etc\/nginx\/global\r\n<\/pre>\n
    With the \"global\" directory created, I got into it:<\/p>\n
    \r\ncd \/etc\/nginx\/global\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Inside \"\/etc\/nginx\/global\", I created the global restriction rules inside the file: restrictions.conf<\/strong>, with the following contents:<\/p>\n
    \r\n# Global restrictions configuration file.\r\n# Designed to be included in any server {} block.\r\nlocation = \/favicon.ico {\r\n\tlog_not_found off;\r\n\taccess_log off;\r\n}\r\n\r\nlocation = \/robots.txt {\r\n\tallow all;\r\n\tlog_not_found off;\r\n\taccess_log off;\r\n}\r\n<\/pre>\n
    I then created the general WordPress rules inside of wordpress.conf<\/strong>, with the following contents:<\/p>\n
    \r\n# WordPress single site rules.\r\n# Designed to be included in any server {} block.\r\n\r\n# This order might seem weird - this is attempted to match last if rules below fail.\r\n# http:\/\/wiki.nginx.org\/HttpCoreModule\r\nlocation \/ {\r\n\ttry_files $uri $uri\/ \/index.php?$args;\r\n}\r\n\r\n# Add trailing slash to *\/wp-admin requests.\r\nrewrite \/wp-admin$ $scheme:\/\/$host$uri\/ permanent;\r\n\r\n# Directives to send expires headers and turn off 404 error logging.\r\nlocation ~* ^.+\\.(ogg|ogv|svg|svgz|eot|otf|woff|mp4|ttf|rss|atom|jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|ppt|tar|mid|midi|wav|bmp|rtf)$ {\r\n       access_log off; log_not_found off; expires max;\r\n}\r\n\r\n# Uncomment one of the lines below for the appropriate caching plugin (if used).\r\n#include global\/wordpress-wp-super-cache.conf;\r\n#include global\/wordpress-w3-total-cache.conf;\r\n\r\n# Pass all .php files onto a php-fpm\/php-fcgi server.\r\nlocation ~ [^\/]\\.php(\/|$) {\r\n\tfastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\\.php)(\/.*)$;\r\n\tif (!-f $document_root$fastcgi_script_name) {\r\n\t\treturn 404;\r\n\t}\r\n\t# This is a robust solution for path info security issue and works with "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1" in \/etc\/php.ini (default)\r\n\r\n\tinclude fastcgi_params;\r\n\tfastcgi_index index.php;\r\n\tfastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;\r\n#\tfastcgi_intercept_errors on;\r\n\tfastcgi_pass unix:\/var\/run\/php5-fpm.sock;\r\n}\r\n\r\n# Deny all attempts to access hidden files such as .htaccess, .htpasswd, .DS_Store (Mac).\r\n# Keep logging the requests to parse later (or to pass to firewall utilities such as fail2ban)\r\nlocation ~ \/\\. {\r\n\tdeny all;\r\n}\r\n\r\n# Deny access to any files with a .php extension in the uploads directory\r\n# Works in sub-directory installs and also in multisite network\r\n# Keep logging the requests to parse later (or to pass to firewall utilities such as fail2ban)\r\nlocation ~* \/(?:uploads|files)\/.*\\.php$ {\r\n\tdeny all;\r\n}\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Creating the Nginx configuration rules for the new WordPress site<\/h4>\n
    With the common files, restrictions.conf<\/code> and wordpress.conf<\/code>, created, I then went on to create the Nginx configurations that will tell Nginx how to serve HTTP requests directed at the domain name of my new WordPress site:<\/p>\n
    \r\nserver {\r\n\tlisten 80;\r\n\tserver_name anewwebsite.com www.anewwebsite.com;\r\n\troot \/var\/www\/my_new_wordpress_site;\r\n\r\n\tindex index.php;\r\n\r\n\tinclude global\/restrictions.conf;\r\n\r\n\t# Only include one of the files below.\r\n\tinclude global\/wordpress.conf;\r\n}\r\n<\/pre>\n
    I saved this file as anewwebsite.com.conf<\/code> and placed it in the \/etc\/nginx\/sites-enabled<\/code> directory.<\/p>\n
    After I was done with my Nginx settings, I restarted the Nginx server:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo systemctl restart nginx\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Creating a new MySQL user and a database instance for the WordPress site<\/h2>\n
    The new WordPress site will need a new MySQL user to log into a database instance. To do so, I first login to the MySQL server with MySQL root user via the terminal:<\/p>\n
    \r\nmysql -u root -p\r\n<\/pre>\n
    After keying the password for the MySQL root user, I created a database instance: <\/p>\n
    \r\nmysql> CREATE DATABASE newWordPressDb;\r\n<\/pre>\n
    After creating the new database instance successfully, I went on to create the MySQL user which could interact with newWordPressDb:<\/p>\n
    \r\nmysql> CREATE USER 'anewuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';\r\nmysql> GRANT ALL ON newWordPressDb.* TO 'anewuser'@'localhost';\r\n<\/pre>\n
    With that, I would have a MySQL user that is able to interact with a database instance on behalf of my new WordPress site.<\/p>\n
    Creating the WordPress configurations to talk to the database instance<\/h2>\n
    With the dependencies being configured, the final set of configurations that I needed to create was for WordPress to take. <\/p>\n
    To begin with the configurations, I renamed wp-config-sample.php<\/code> to wp-config.php<\/code>:<\/p>\n
    \r\nsudo mv \/var\/www\/my_new_wordpress_site\/wp-config-sample.php \/var\/www\/my_new_wordpress_site\/wp-config.php\r\n<\/pre>\n
    I then open up the wp-config.php<\/code> file inside my WordPress installation directory, \/var\/www\/my_new_wordpress_site<\/code>, and updated the sections that looked like the following:<\/p>\n
    \r\n\/\/ ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** \/\/\r\n\/** The name of the database for WordPress *\/\r\ndefine('DB_NAME', 'newWordPressDb');\r\n\r\n\/** MySQL database username *\/\r\ndefine('DB_USER', 'anewuser');\r\n\r\n\/** MySQL database password *\/\r\ndefine('DB_PASSWORD', 'password');\r\n\r\n\/** MySQL hostname *\/\r\ndefine('DB_HOST', 'localhost');\r\n\r\n\/\/ .... Other settings ...\r\n\r\n\/\/ Generated from https:\/\/api.wordpress.org\/secret-key\/1.1\/salt\/\r\ndefine('AUTH_KEY',         '9b{65l@weJn+4Svc;]pz9b6vB[q-Py!>L_;=wM[trXTHyan+Suhq|w})9uvX4DKl');\r\ndefine('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  '.J& 4`BMG#L#)t-+8Lv$DPT3X.mg}^kY^E2x!Ow8n7}Z|!s4B#RTc`<Ap]$~${%+');\r\ndefine('LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'DTo`gm+NE5ej6QB-5}+QOrk)B?SyR=PioYBLIo.Q_-|UjqhNvy]6y*@nDgs*F;68');\r\ndefine('NONCE_KEY',        '@2<U|{md-l3`|^VV2[S#i&kH7|WF|qB%*kXCw||zVuvr<$q3\/^,.+bRbSb){JLN7');\r\ndefine('AUTH_SALT',        ']_L90r+ NbL;m.&Y<>^4 ^Jw-)H&H18YrqBqOpeDA0i*Lb4|&}a+yUUp9R2Zi3+!');\r\ndefine('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'm61%<@s>3+;k(4-,^bT:BMf*yYxyxVG+80WV=X\/f8GtI>R^V+iE1GO@0XA%Sw_U{');\r\ndefine('LOGGED_IN_SALT',   '#F7SQ QhgviCMIFnBK~Z_J-TiV{Gj@|CjS|rM[kIquM;v,ce&Sk\/gn.X9kt1_[*]');\r\ndefine('NONCE_SALT',       'HEpM<urflJp(|~c`=-pt#C+M:f=R;rY\/E$_klu[ly`J.Sc|P,pnyW.FaZ-|>Pq]F');\r\n<\/pre>\n
    Be sure to access https:\/\/api.wordpress.org\/secret-key\/1.1\/salt\/<\/a> with your browser to get the values for the section starting from \"AUTH_KEY\" to \"NONCE_SALT\".<\/p>\n
    Editing the hosts file on my work computer so that I can direct HTTP requests for the new domain onto the Raspberry Pi 3 server<\/h2>\n
    After creating the necessary configurations that allowed WordPress to talk to my MySQL server, I proceeded on to making my Windows machine direct HTTP requests for anewwebsite.com<\/strong> or www.anewwebsite.com <\/strong>over to my LEMP web server on Raspberry Pi 3.<\/p>\n
    On my Raspberry Pi 3, I ran the following command to get the IP address of its eth0<\/code> network interface:<\/p>\n
    \r\nifconfig\r\n<\/pre>\n
    With the IP address, 10.0.2.112, from the output, I went over to my Windows work machine and looked for the hosts<\/code> file at the C:\/Windows\/System32\/drivers\/etc\/<\/code> folder and added the following lines of configurations:<\/p>\n
    10.0.2.112 anewwebsite.com
    \n10.0.2.112 www.anewwebsite.com<\/p>\n
    Running the WordPress install script<\/h2>\n
    After all the configurations were done, I typed 'www.anewwebsite.com' into the browser on my Windows work machine.<\/p>\n
    With that, I was shown the following page:<\/p>\n
    \"WordPress<\/p>\n
    After I filled up all the necessary fields and clicked on the \"Install WordPress\" button, I got the following screen:<\/p>\n
    \"WordPress<\/p>\n
    This page indicated that I had managed to set up a LEMP web server on Raspberry Pi 3 with an Ubuntu Server 15.10.3 image to host my new WordPress site.<\/p>\n
    Clicking on the \"Log In\" button brought me to the login page where I could supply my username and password to begin creating my content.<\/p>\n
    Buying the Raspberry Pi 3 hardware to build your own LEMP web server<\/h2>\n
    If you do not have the Raspberry Pi 3 hardware mentioned in this post yet, you may want to purchase them from Amazon. Simply click on the button below to add the Raspberry Pi 3 hardware to your cart. You may remove anything that you already have or replace some of the hardware with other hardware.<\/p>\n
    <\/p>\n

    \n<\/form>\n
    <\/center><\/p>\n\n