Elevate Your Website: A Beginner's Guide to Setting Up a WordPress Site on AWS and S3

 Launching an EC2 Instance

Step 1: Create an AWS Account To start launching an EC2 instance, you first need to have an AWS account. Go to the AWS homepage and click on the "Create an AWS account" button to set up your account. Step 2: Launching an EC2 Instance Once you have created an AWS account, log in to the AWS Management Console. In the search bar, type "EC2" and select the first option that appears. On the EC2 Dashboard, click on the "Launch Instance" button to start the process of launching a new EC2 instance. Step 3: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) Next, you need to choose an AMI. An AMI is a pre-configured template that contains the software configurations, operating system, and application server needed for your instance. For hosting WordPress, you can choose the "Amazon Linux 2 AMI (HVM), SSD Volume Type" as it is free and works well with WordPress. Select the latest version and click on "Select" to continue. Step 4: Choose an Instance Type In this step, you need to select the type of instance you want to launch. The instance type determines the hardware capabilities, such as CPU, memory, and storage, of your EC2 instance. For hosting WordPress, you can choose a t2.micro instance type, which is part of the AWS free tier and provides enough resources for a small website. Step 5: Configure Instance Details In this step, you can leave the default settings and click on "Next: Add Storage." However, if you want to make any changes, you can configure the instance details, such as number of instances, network settings, and IAM role.

Step 6: Add Storage By default, your instance comes with a root volume of 8GB. To host WordPress, it is recommended to have at least 20GB of storage. Click on "Add New Volume" to add a new volume, and specify the size and type of storage you want for your instance. Step 7: Add Tags In this step, you can add tags to your instance for better organization and management. Click on "Add Tag" and specify a name and a value for your tag. Step 8: Configure Security Groups Security groups act as virtual firewalls for your EC2 instance. You can define inbound and outbound rules to control the traffic to and from your instance. To host WordPress, you need to allow inbound traffic on port 80 for HTTP and port 443 for HTTPS. You can also add an SSH rule to access your instance remotely for maintenance purposes. Step 9: Review and Launch Review all the configurations you have made.

Installing WordPress

Step 1: Launch EC2 Instance 1. Log into your AWS account and go to the EC2 dashboard. 2. Click on the "Launch Instance" button. 3. Select an appropriate AMI (Amazon Machine Image). For WordPress, you can choose a pre-configured AMI with WordPress already installed. 4. Choose an instance type based on your needs and click "Next: Configure Instance Details". Step 2: Configure Instance Details 1. Choose the VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) and subnet for your instance. 2. Choose "Auto-assign Public IP" to enable your instance to have a Public IP address. 3. Click "Next: Add Storage". Step 3: Add Storage 1. Click on "Add New Volume" and set the size and type of the volume. 2. You can also add additional volumes for more storage if needed. 3. Click "Next: Add Tags". Step 4: Add Tags 1. Click on "Add Tag". 2. Enter a Name & Value for the tag for your instance, such as "WordPress Instance". 3. Click "Next: Configure Security Group". Step 5: Configure Security Group 1. Click on "Create a New Security Group" and enter a name and description for your security group. 2. Select "HTTP" and "HTTPS" from the "Type" dropdown to allow web traffic to your instance. 3. Click "Review and Launch". Step 6: Review and Launch 1. Review your instance configuration and click "Launch". 2. A window will pop up asking you to select a key pair. If you already have an existing key pair, select it from the dropdown. Otherwise, create a new key pair and download it. This key pair will be used to connect to your instance. 3. Click "Launch Instances". Step 7: Accessing Your Instance 1. Go to your EC2 dashboard and wait for your instance to launch. 2. Once it's running, select the instance and click on "Connect". 3. Follow the instructions to connect to your instance via SSH using the key pair you downloaded. 4. Once connected, you will have access to your EC2 instance. Step 8: Configuring WordPress 1. Install Apache web server by running the command "sudo yum install httpd" in your terminal. 2. Install MySQL database server by running the command "sudo yum install mysql-server". 3. Install PHP by running the command "sudo yum install php". 4. Download and install WordPress by running the command "wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz" followed by "tar -xvf latest.tar.gz" and then "sudo mv wordpress /var/www/html/wordpress". 5. Create a database for your WordPress installation by running the command "mysqladmin -u root -p create wp_database". Enter your password when prompted. 6. Grant privileges to the database you created by running the command "mysql -u root -p -e "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wp_database.* TO 'wp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';" where wp_database is the name of your database, wp_user is the username and password is the password you want to use. 7. Configure WordPress by navigating to the WordPress directory using the command "cd /var/www/html/wordpress" and then running the command "sudo nano wp-config.php" to create a configuration file. 8. Update the database name, username and password in the configuration file with the details you previously created. 9. Save and close the file by pressing "Ctrl + X", then "Y" and "Enter". 10. Edit the WordPress Apache configuration file by running the command "sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf" and adding the following code at the bottom of the file: <Directory /var/www/html> AllowOverride All </Directory> 11. Save and close the file. 12. Start and enable Apache and MySQL by running the commands "sudo systemctl start httpd" and "sudo systemctl start mysqld" respectively. 13. Access your WordPress installation by entering the Public IP of your instance into your web browser. 14. Follow the instructions to complete the WordPress installation. 15. Once installed, you can log into your WordPress dashboard and start customizing your website. Step 9: Connecting WordPress to S3 Bucket for Media Storage 1. Log into your AWS account and go to the S3 dashboard. 2. Create a new bucket to store your media files. 3. Go to the EC2 dashboard and select your instance. 4. Click on the "Actions" dropdown and select "Security Groups". Select your security group used for your instance. 5. Click on the "Inbound" tab and then click "Edit". 6. Add a new rule with the "Type" set to "Custom TCP Rule", "Port Range" set to "3306.