How To Host a WordPress Website Using AWS?

This tutorial will walk you through hosting a WordPress website on AWS, starting from creating an AWS account to setting up a secure WordPress installation.

Step 1: Create an AWS Free Tier Account

AWS (Amazon Web Services) provides a free tier account for testing and learning purposes.To create an account:

• Visit the AWS Free Tier Page.

• Follow the steps to complete the registration process.

Step 2: Register a Domain and Host DNS Zones in Amazon Route 53

Amazon Route 53 is AWS's DNS platform that allows you to register domains and manage DNS entries.

Steps to Register a Domain

1. Log in to the AWS Console.

2. Navigate to Networking & Content Delivery > Route 53.

3. Choose Register Domain and follow the instructions.

   Example domain: mypagename.com (replace your link).

4. Once registered, go to Route 53 > Hosted Zones to view your domain's name servers.

Add DNS entries in the hosted zone to manage your domain.

Step 3: Create an EC2 Instance

AWS EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) is used to host your WordPress site.

1. In the AWS Console, go to Services > EC2 > Launch Instance.

2. Select the Amazon Linux AMI. Choose the t2.micro instance type (free tier eligible).

3. Configure the instance and:

   Download the PEM key during setup and save it securely.

   Create a new security group with ports 80, 22, and 443 open.

4. Launch the instance.

Step 4: Install and Configure Nginx

1. Access the Instance

Navigate to your PEM key location and set permissions:

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chmod 400 key.pem
                                

SSH into the instance using the public IP:

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ssh -i key.pem ec2-user@ <your-ec2-public-ip>
                                

2. Install Nginx

Update the YUM repository and install Nginx:

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sudo yum update -y
sudo yum install nginx -y
sudo service nginx start
sudo chkconfig nginx on
<your-ec2-public-ip>
                                

3. Configure Nginx

Create a directory for virtual host configurations:

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sudo mkdir /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
                                

Create a configuration file for your domain:

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sudo vi /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mypagename.com.conf
                                

Add the following configuration:

nginx

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server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /home/myblog/;
index index.html index.htm index.php;
server_name mypagename.com www.mypagename.com;

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
}
                                

Test the Nginx configuration and restart the service:

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sudo nginx -t
sudo service nginx restart
                                

Step 5: Install WordPress

1. Download WordPress

Navigate to the document root for your website:

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cd /home/myblog/
                                

Download and extract WordPress:

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wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xvzf latest.tar.gz
mv wordpress/* .
rm -rf latest.tar.gz wordpress/
                                

Step 6: Install Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate

1. Install Dependencies

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sudo yum install python27-devel git
git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt /opt/letsencrypt
                                

2. Run Certbot for SSL Installation

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sudo /opt/letsencrypt/letsencrypt-auto --debug
                                

a. Provide the domain name and email address during the process.

b. Certbot automatically adds SSL configurations to your Nginx file.

3. Example HTTPS Block

   nginx

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server {
listen 443 ssl;
root /home/myblog/;
index index.html index.htm index.php;
server_name mypagename.com www.mypagename.com;

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
}
                                

Step 7: Redirect HTTP to HTTPS

To ensure all traffic uses HTTPS, add this directive to the port 80 server block:

nginx

rewrite ^ https://$host$request_uri? permanent;
                                

Step 8: Point Your Domain to the EC2 Instance

1. Navigate to Route 53 > Hosted Zones in the AWS Console.

2. Create an A Record pointing to your EC2 instance’s public IP for both

Conclusion

You have successfully set up a WordPress website on AWS! By following these steps, you now have a functional website hosted on a secure and scalable AWS infrastructure. Explore additional features like RDS for databases or Elastic Load Balancing for improved performance and reliability.