Setup WordPress on AWS Lightsail

This post will detail my notes from the steps I used for a new project to get WordPress up and running on AWS Lightsail.

References:

• Setting up WordPress on Lightsail Properly by Michael Wood
• Quick start guide: WordPress on Amazon Lightsail by AWS
• Getting the application user name and password for your ‘Certified by Bitnami’ instance in Amazon Lightsail by AWS

Purchase the Domain Name using Route53

Every great project must start with a new domain name… I will use AWS Route53.

1. Log into the AWS Console.
2. Navigate to the Route 53 service.
3. Check for and Register domain.

4. Find the perfect domain name, check availability, and purchase.
5. It can take a bit for the request to be processed, up to 3 days, but normally it is fairly quick. Be sure to confirm the email, which validates your email address.
6. Now that you have your new domain name, you are fully committed to completing the project!

Deploy the Lightsail Instance

1. On the AWS console, navigate to the Lightsail service.
2. Click Create Instance
3. Select defaults platform: Linux/Unix, and blueprint: WordPress
   • This will install the WordPress Certified by Bitnami and Automattic 5.9.2-3 (at the time of this post) configuration.
4. Change SSH key pair, or use the default suggested.
5. Choose the instance plan. The smallest is sufficient for a lightly used site ($3.50 / month, 512 MB, 1 vCPU, 20 GB SSD, 1 TB Transfer).
6. Identify your instance: Select an instance name
7. Add any tags if desired.
8. Click Create instance.
   

Create a Static IP

1. Select the option to Add a Static IP, otherwise your public IP address will change when the instance is stopped / started.
2. Attach the Static IP to your new instance.

Point Domain Name to the Static IP

1. In Route 53, select the hosted zone for your new domain name.
2. Click Create record.
   1. Record name – add a www prefix, for example, if desired.
   2. Record type – A record (default)
   3. Value – paste in the public IP address for your Elastic IP
   4. TTL seconds – 300 (default)
   5. Routing policy – Simple Routing (default)
   6. Click Create record.
3. Create additional A records for other prefixes, for example: www or blog, if needed.
4. It will take a moment for the records to propagate and become active.

Connect to your Instance

1. Connect to your instance using ssh with the key saved earlier, or use the console to connect. The user name is bitnami. The example below is connecting from a linux bash shell.

chmod 400 your-lightsail-key.pem
ssh -i your-lightsail-key.pem bitnami@your-static-ip

2. When first logging in, a message was displayed that locales were not installed.

sudo apt-get install locales-all

Set up Encryption

We will be using Let’s Encrypt to serve your website using HTTPS.

sudo /opt/bintami/bncert-tool

Adjustments to wp-config.php

sudo vi /opt/bitnami/wp-config.php

#Change the WP_SITEURL and WP_HOME to reflect your domain name with https.

Adjustments to php.ini

sudo vi /opt/bitnami/php/etc/php.ini

# Change the:
# upload_max_filesize = 150M
# post_max_size = 150M

# Increase (if desired...
# I left it at the default 30 without any issue so far)
# max_execution_time = 300

Get the bitnami user password

cd
cat bitnami_application_password

Sign in to your site

1. Open a browser tab to your domain-name, you should now connect to your site, and see the WordPress login screen.
2. Login using the username: user, password: bitnami_application_password obtained above.

Create a Snapshot of your site

1. Return to the AWS Lightsail console
2. Select the new instance
3. Select the Snapshots tab.
4. Click + Create snapshot, provide a name, click Create.
5. While in the snapshots page, slide the switch to enable Automatic snapshots, if desired.

Complete WordPress Configuration

1. Return to your website on your browser.
2. If desired, add a new username with Administration rights, login with it to continue your work (the bitnami provided user can then be removed).
3. Complete the WordPress configuration as normal. For example, configure themes, pages, posts, appearance, etc.

Good luck! I found the references at the top of this post to be helpful.