Building a scalable WordPress site on AWS offers unparalleled flexibility, performance, and security. This guide walks you through each step, from launching an EC2 instance to fine-tuning security settings, ensuring your site is ready for traffic and growth.

Initiating Your Journey: Launching an EC2 Instance

The first step in crafting a scalable WordPress site on AWS is launching an EC2 instance, which serves as the server for your WordPress installation. Here’s how to get started:

  1. Log into AWS Management Console: Navigate to the EC2 Dashboard.
  2. Launch an Instance: Choose “Launch Instance” and select an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). The Amazon Linux 2 AMI is a solid choice for WordPress.
  3. Choose an Instance Type: Choose an instance type that meets your site’s anticipated traffic. The t2.micro instance is free-tier eligible and sufficient for small—to medium-traffic sites.
  4. Configure Instance Details: Set up your instance according to your needs, including VPC, subnet, and IAM role configurations.
  5. Add Storage: Define the storage size for your instance, ensuring ample space for your website’s files and data.
  6. Add Tags and Configure Security Group: Tags help you organize your AWS resources. Set up a Security Group to allow SSH (port 22), HTTP (port 80), and HTTPS (port 443) traffic.
  7. Launch and Connect: Launch your instance and connect to it using an SSH client with the key pair you created during setup.

Securing Your Foundation: Connecting to the EC2 Instance

Connecting to your EC2 instance is crucial for configuring and maintaining your WordPress site:

  1. Open Terminal (Mac/Linux) or PowerShell (Windows): Use the SSH command to connect to your instance:
    ssh -i “your-key.pem” ec2-user@your-public-ip
  2. Secure Your Connection: Update the system packages and apply security patches:
    sudo yum update -y

Laying the Groundwork: Installing and Configuring Apache Webserver

Apache is the web server software that will serve your WordPress site:

  1. Install Apache:
    sudo yum install httpd -y
  2. Start and Enable Apache:
    sudo systemctl start httpd

sudo systemctl enable httpd

  1. Adjust Permissions: Ensure Apache has the necessary permissions to serve your site’s files:
    sudo chown -R ec2-user:ec2-user /var/www/html

Establishing the Database Backbone: Setting Up AWS RDS for MySQL

A scalable WordPress site needs a reliable database. AWS RDS for MySQL offers a managed solution with automated backups, scaling, and maintenance:

  1. Launch an RDS Instance:
    • Navigate to the RDS dashboard and select “Create database.”
    • Choose MySQL as the engine and the version compatible with WordPress.
    • Configure the instance size, storage, and security settings.
    • Set up a new VPC Security Group to allow access from your EC2 instance.
  2. Configure MySQL Database:
    • After launching, note the endpoint, username, and password for connecting your WordPress installation to the database.
    • Optionally, connect to the MySQL instance to create a database specifically for WordPress.

Bringing WordPress to Life: Installation and Configuration

With the server and database in place, it’s time to install WordPress:

  1. Download WordPress:
    cd /var/www/html

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz

  1. Configure WordPress:
  • Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php and update it with your RDS MySQL database details.
  • Set up the database name, username, password, and host (RDS endpoint).
  1. Set Permissions:
    sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/wordpress

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/wordpress

  1. Complete Installation via Browser: Visit your EC2 instance’s public IP to complete the WordPress installation through the web interface.

Fine-Tuning Security: Adjusting Security Group Settings

Security is paramount. Refine your Security Group settings to protect your WordPress site:

  1. Restrict SSH Access: Limit SSH access to specific IP addresses.
  2. Implement HTTPS: Use an SSL certificate to encrypt traffic between your visitors and your website.
  3. Harden WordPress: Install security plugins, turn off file editing through the WordPress dashboard, and update your installation.

Welcoming Visitors: Accessing Your WordPress Site

Once WordPress is installed and configured, your site is ready for visitors:

  • Access Your Site: Visit your domain or public IP address to see your WordPress site live.
  • Log into the Admin Panel: You can manage your content, themes, and plugins through the WordPress admin panel, accessible at http://your-public-ip/wp-admin.

Final Thoughts: Best Practices and Considerations

To ensure your WordPress site remains scalable and secure, consider the following best practices:

  • Use CloudFront: Implement AWS CloudFront as a CDN to speed up content delivery globally.
  • Auto Scaling: Set up Auto Scaling for your EC2 instance to handle traffic spikes.
  • Regular Backups: Automate your WordPress files and database backups using AWS Backup.
  • Monitor Performance: Utilize AWS CloudWatch to monitor your instance’s performance and set up alarms for critical metrics.

Following this guide, you’ve built a robust and scalable WordPress site on AWS that can easily handle traffic while maintaining high-security standards.

References

Deploying a high-availability WordPress website with an external Amazon RDS database to Elastic Beanstalk

Launch and Configure a WordPress Instance with Amazon Lightsail