The Pi’s low power consumption makes it well suited to the role of always-on web server. This post describes how to install WordPress on the Raspberry Pi and get a blog going. Hosting your own blog means you keep ownership of your data, and you are not dependent on blogger.com or whoever. This procedure was UPDATED on 11th march 2020 for Raspbian 10 / Buster.
If you have already installed WordPress and just want to upgrade it, perhaps because a new version has been released, please see my article How to Upgrade WordPress on Linux
Install Apache
Install the Apache web server with these commands. It might take 10 minutes or so to complete. A few other packages will also be installed.
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get update pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get install apache2
Now install PHP and a couple of additional modules:
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get install php php-mysql php-xml
A number of dependent packages will also be installed.
Install the MySQL Database (aka MariaDB)
WordPress keeps all of your posts and other data in a MySQL database. Install MySQL now. We will use the “-y” flag this time, to automatically answer “yes” to the yes/no install question. Note that MySQL has recently been replaced by MariaDB, an open source drop-in replacement, so that is what we install.
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get install -y mariadb-server
Be patient while the database installation completes. It can take about 10 minutes.
Increase MySQL Security
Now secure the MySQL installation. Run the script /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation. It will first ask you to enter the “current password for root”. No password has been set yet, so just press return to log in. Next, it asks you if you want to set a root password. Answer “y“, choose a sensible password and make a note of it. Then answer “y” to all of the remaining questions, as below.
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation Enter current password for root (enter for none): OK, successfully used password, moving on... Set root password? [Y/n] y New password: Re-enter new password: Password updated successfully! Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y ... Thanks for using MariaDB!
Test the Database
Test the MySQL installation by logging into MySQL and out again. It will ask for the password chosen earlier:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo mysql -u root -p Enter password: Welcome to the MariaDB monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MariaDB connection id is 12 Server version: 10.1.23-MariaDB-9+deb9u1 Raspbian 9.0 Copyright (c) 2000, 2017, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others. Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement. MariaDB [(none)]> exit Bye
It works!
Create the Database
Create the database and create a user for WordPress. Again you must enter the password. In the example I have called the wordpress user “wpfred” with a password of raindrop. For your own installation, choose a different user name and password. Don’t forget to take a note of both.
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 14
Server version: 10.1.23-MariaDB-9+deb9u1 Raspbian 9.0
Copyright (c) 2000, 2017, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
MariaDB [(none)]> create database wordpress;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
MariaDB [(none)]> create user wpfred;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
MariaDB [(none)]> set password for wpfred = password("raindrop");
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
MariaDB [(none)]> grant all PRIVILEGES on wordpress.* to wpfred@localhost identified by 'raindrop';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
MariaDB [(none)]> exit;
Bye
That does it for the database.
Install WordPress
Proceed as follows.
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get install -y wordpress
WordPress will install, along with many associated packages.
Restart Apache
Now, restart the Apache web server so that it will work properly with the WordPress packages just installed. Use the command:
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo service apache2 restart
Note that this command does not print any messages to the terminal.
Configure WordPress
Create a link from your Apache installation to the WordPress directory. Here, I have called the link “myblog”.
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo ln -s /usr/share/wordpress /var/www/html/myblog
Copy the default configuration file into place and edit it:
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo cp /usr/share/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php /etc/wordpress/config-default.php pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo vi /etc/wordpress/config-default.php
(many thanks to Gene Shiau for the above commands. For more info, see /usr/share/doc/wordpress/ README.debian)
Change the lines for DB_NAME, DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD near the top of the file. In the example I have entered the user and password defined above.
So this part of the config-default.php file changes from
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'database_name_here');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'username_here');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password_here');
to:
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'wpfred');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'raindrop');
Save the file.
Fill in the WordPress Welcome Form
Now start a web browser and surf to http://<ip address of your Pi>/myblog
For example, my Pi’s IP address is 192.168.1.90, so I surf to http://192.168.1.90/myblog
Note: If you see an error message in the browser like this: “Neither /etc/wordpress/config-pi.php nor /etc/wordpress/config-pi.php could be found. Ensure one of them exists, is readable by the webserver and contains the right password/username”.
… then please check again that you copied the default wordpress configuration file from /usr/share/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php to /etc/wordpress/config-default.php, as instructed above. Just check it by running more on the file now:
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ more /etc/wordpress/config-default.php
…and you should see the contents of the file.
Fill out the form, entering a title for your blog, and entering a name for the admin user. (Note: do not choose “admin”, as it is easy to guess. Choose something else, perhaps your own name, say followed by a number, like “mike382”). Enter a secure password and keep a note of it, or use the password already filled in. Enter an email address where indicated.
Next, click the “Install WordPress” button, and wait a couple of minutes while WordPress completes the installation.
Log in to WordPress
You will see a page saying “Success!” and a button to log in. Click that, and log in, with the user name and password you chose earlier.
The WordPress Dashboard will appear. Congratulations! You have successfully installed WordPress on your Raspberry Pi.
A Note on Speed
When a user visits your blog, a large post will load into their browser in about 2 seconds, if you are running WordPress on a Raspberry Pi 2 or 3. In order to make posts load faster, I would recommend using the wp-super-cache plugin for WordPress. Wp-super-cache will create and serve cached copies of each post, which will load into the visitor’s browser in less than a second. Even if you decide not to use caching, a load time of 2 seconds will still make your blog faster than many Internet sites.
Protecting your Site with TLS/HTTPS
If you want to protect your WordPress site by converting it from HTTP to HTTPS, please see my later article: How to Convert a Website from HTTP to HTTPS.
A Note on Security
If you plan on making the blog internet-facing, make sure that the WordPress user and password is properly secure and hard to guess. There are many guides on the Internet offering more WordPress security tips.
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Hi, I’ve installed on my Pi but have no access forl internet. NAT is not the problem because I can visit my site on joomla, I’ve seen that I can access to my wordpress home site but when I try to go to another page it looks for my internal IP and as you can think that it’s not possible over external internet conection.
Could you help me? Thank you.
Hi Raspi. From the WordPress Dashboard, go to Settings->General. Near the top of the page you see two fields called “WordPress Address (URL)” and “Site Address (URL)“. Change both of these to be the URL of your WordPress blog. For example, change both to
http://your_external_IP/myblog
or if you have a domain name, change both to
http://yourdomainname/myblog
And save the changes. The URLs on your site will then point to the proper external address instead of your internal IP. Note: be careful when making the above changes, as entering the wrong thing can occasionally lock you out of WordPress.
Hello, Thank you for your tutorial! It really helped me!
I have a problem with it: how can I have my domain to be: http://mydomainname.com or whatever, no “/myblog” after it? I tried just changing it in the general settings of WordPress, but when I access my website just with the domain name, I get an Apache standard page
Hi Thomas. To do that, apart from reconfiguring WordPress (which you have done), you would need to change the link created under the section “Configure WordPress”. Remove the old link, and the html directory, and create a new link:
sudo rm /var/www/html/myblog
sudo rmdir /var/www/html
sudo ln -s /usr/share/wordpress /var/www/html
NOTE: this assumes you are not running any other web sites on the same raspberry pi.
Hope that helps.
Jim.
I get the following error message in the browser like this: Neither /etc/wordpress/config-localhost.php nor /etc/wordpress/config-localhost.php could be found.
Ensure one of them exists, is readable by the webserver and contains the right password/username
Any thoughts/help grateful received.
Thanks for your help
Hi Simon. Try creating the following link
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo ln -s /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php /etc/wordpress/config-localhost.php
It’s the same problem as noted in the original article (search the post for “exists”), except I guess the hostname on your pi is “locahost”, whereas mine is called “pi”. WordPress complains it cannot find /etc/wordpress/config-.php
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Thank you for this tutorial, it has been extremely helpful. Unfortunately I am stuck in the same place as Simon. I am getting Neither /etc/wordpress/config-.php nor /etc/wordpress/config-.php could be found. Ensure one of them exists, is readable by the webserver and contains the right password/username.
I have tried the linking posted in your tutorial as well as what you wrote in response to simon — so both pi and local host. I am not able to get past this error. Do you have any suggestions?
Hi Joanna, it seems that WordPress might be a bit confused about the name of your system. Please post the output of the following two commands:
# hostname
# ls -l /etc/wordpress
I have the exact same problem.
Hostname gives : Ghosting
ls -l /etc/wordpress gives:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Nov 13 23:08 config-127.0.1.php -> /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Nov 13 22:59 config-Ghosting.php -> /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Nov 13 22:58 config-localhost.php -> /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Nov 13 23:00 config-pi.php -> /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 898 Sep 13 21:10 htaccess
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 3160 Nov 13 22:55 wp-config.php
Thanks
Hi George and others still having this problem about “Neither /etc/wordpress/config-.php nor /etc/wordpress/config-.php could be found…”
Whatever WordPress says it can not find, just create it as a link pointing to wp-config.php file. WordPress is just trying to open the file using the link.
So in Joanna’s case, WordPress is cannot find /etc/wordpress/config-.php. Give WordPress what is wants and create the link:
$ sudo ln -s /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php /etc/wordpress/config-.php
Then do this to make sure you created the link right and it resolves to the config file:
$sudo cat /etc/wordpress/config-.php
You should see the contents of the wp-config.php file. If you see it, so will WordPress and it should work.
I change the config-pi.php to config-ipadress.php and it started to work. I think I might try localhost.php later. I think that will work better.
$ sudo mv /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php /etc/wordpress/config-192.168.1.10.php
Hi there. Thanks for the tutorial, *very* useful.
I’m stuck at the same place, because it seems that the file is owned by root and I cannot get write permissions on it with my user-account or with sudo.
Here’s the output of ls -l on /etc/wordpress/ :
pi@pedagopi:/$ ls -l /etc/wordpress
total 8
-r—w—- 1 root root 3177 janv. 22 17:09 config-default.php
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 898 sept. 13 23:10 htaccess
I’ve been looking in the info on chmod commands to give me writing rights to /etc/wordpress/config-default.php, but I’m afraid it’s all double dutch to me. Am I right it’s only a question of writing permissions ? What’s the most easy / efficient way to change this ?
Again a big THANK YOU for this tutorial and for the help it provides !
Hi Antoine
Yes, the permissions on your config-default.php file mean that you must have root rights in order to edit it. I see from your prompt that you are logged in as “pi” user. By default, “pi” user is enabled for sudo. However if it is not working for you, get the root password and fix as follows.
pi@pedagopi:/$ su –
Password: [type root password here]
root@pedagopi # vi /etc/wordpress/config-default.php
[edit the file in vi and save it]
And if you want to enable sudo for the “pi” account:
root@pedagopi # echo “pi ALL=(ALL) ALL” >> /etc/sudoers
should do it. Type ctrl-d to logout as root and return to “pi” user. NB. it is better to leave the ownership and permissions on the file are they are, for security reasons.
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Quick question for you how do I actually change the wp-config.php and save the changes. I am using terminal on the mac and there does not seem to be a logical way to do this.
I have figured out how to edit wp-config.php however when I try to save and exit vi I always get this message. Cannot seem to resolve can anyone help???
“/etc/wordpress/wp-config.php” E212: Can’t open file for writing
Press ENTER or type command to continue
Hi Andrew I am not a Mac user but typing “vim” in a terminal should bring up the vim editor (like vi). So to edit the file type “vim /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php” or similar.
The E212 error means you have no rights to write the file, so changes cannot be saved. Try using sudo, which will give your edit session root rights. Type “sudo” before whatever edit command you are using, eg “sudo vim /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php”
Love this tutorial. Loooove it! I did my WP-on-RPi installation after comparing several tutorials, and this was my favorite.
A word on configuring WordPress: Instead of copying /usr/share/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php into /etc/wordpress/ as wp-config.php, write your command as
sudo cp /usr/share/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php /etc/wordpress/config-default.php
Then use the following command to edit that config file:
vi /etc/wordpress/config-default.php
This will prevent the error “Neither /etc/wordpress/config-[host name or ip addr].php nor /etc/wordpress/config-[host name or ip addr].php could be found” from showing up in the first place. You won’t need to create any link to the file /etc/wordpress/wp-config.php. The WP help file /usr/share/doc/wordpress/README.Debian nicely explains this aspect of the configuration.
Hi Gene, thanks for your comments and the information about copying the config file to config-default.php. Article updated accordingly. That’s great.
Quick Question…
I’ve followed your instructions and got wordpress working..how do I install plugins?
It asks for FTP credentials…
Thanks
I figured it out.
Apparent If you get the FTP screen it means that WordPress doesn’t have access write in the WordPress directory. To fix I ran the following via the terminal:
chgrp -R www-data /usr/share/wordpress
chmod -R 2750 /usr/share/wordpress
chgrp -R www-data /var/www/myblog
chmod -R 2750 /var/www/myblog
cd /var/www
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data myblog
cd /usr/share/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data wordpress
Hi Martyn, thanks for coming back to add the information about FTP and permissions. It should help others with the same problem. I think what matters most is the permissions on the directory /usr/share/wordpress/wp-content (and its sub-direcotry “plugins”. So long as the web server (ie. the www-data user) can write into those folders, uploading plugins should work okay.
as you can see from my site http://lifeonpi.sytes.net/raspgrammer/ it only shows the code idk what should i do to make it work maybe permissions problem? missing software? any help?
Hi MArcosab1991, unfortunately your domain name lifeonpi.sytes.net no longer resolves to an IP address, so I can’t view your site. sytes.net is one of the domains run by no-ip.com, and the free ones expire after a month I think. Maybe your record has expired. Perhaps you could renew it or re-post the URL with an IP address ?
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Corrected again, replacing wp-config.php with config-default.php
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test comment
Hi Jim,
Firstly thanks for updating this guide – of all the ones on the net this is the furthest I have got on getting wordpress installed on my pi3 this however it is still not quite working. I have walked through all the instructions and managed to login to the site, I can see it on my local network and I can get into the dashboard but I cannot change the site (I have also followed Martyn’s permissions guide above). – note this is on a fresh installation of Rasbian stretch.
Symptoms –
1. I cannot upload media files using the drag and drop (but I can one at a time using the browser method). Using drag and drop I get a helpful “HTTP error”.
2. I cannot browse any themes using the theme browser, I just get “An unexpected error occurred. Something may be wrong with WordPress.org or this server’s configuration”. If I download a theme as a zip file I can upload it and preview but I cannot activate.
3. If I go to edit / customise the site, I can change elements of the site but the save / publish button does not enable the site to save. No errors reported on screen but save does nothing (and I lose changes when I navigate away from the site).
4. Plugins install ok BUT when I try to delete I get the message “Deletion failed: Connection lost or the server is busy. Please try again later”.
/usr/share/wordpress/wp-content/* directories all have the same permissions / owner / group. There must be some fundemental permissions error somewhere but I really don’t know what if can be – any pointers?
Hi Geoff. You have installed WordPress following the guide, but there are a few problems. I must admit I have not tried drag-and-drop media files or deleting themes. Please send the outputs of the following commands:
ls -l /usr/share/wordpress
ls -l /usr/share/wordpress/wp-content
ls -l /usr/share/wordpress/wp-content/themes
Also, were there any error messages during the installation, or did everything go exactly as described in the process?
Cheers,
Jim
Hi Jim
It actually was a browser issue! I had noscript running in firefox so added my site / IP as a trusted site and all works fine now!
boy do I feel dumb! Feel free to keep this up as a measure of obviously dumbassery (or incase someone else runs into these kind of issues)..
Thanks – Geoff
Hi Geoff, glad it is working now. If in doubt, always turn off ad blocking/NoScript for your own site.
worked perfectly. one of the better tutorials on the net. Great job!
Cheers Cephasiii.
OK, a real newbie here, but I get a 403 Forbidden error when i try and go to the blog page after install.
Hi All, here is my situation, hope for some help.
Following above instructions:
Apache working, get the default page
PHP working get the php info page
Maria db working can log in directly with user i created
made link in var/www/html for myblog to usr/share/wordpress
copied config file to etc/wordpress and modified per instructions
open browser to http://localhost/myblog and get 403 Forbidden error, you do not have permission to access myblog on this server.
I’m new at this and linux, so im lost as to where the permissions are failing.
Any help appreciated.
Hi Harold, I have tested the procedure again and it seems to work fine. I am not sure why you are seeing this 403 error. Were there any other error messages appearing at any other part of the process?
Try re-starting Apache and see if that helps. Type the command:
sudo service apache2 restart
Then see if you can load the web page properly.
I’m receiving “Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress.” :/
Hi Rui, try restarting Apache with a command like this:
sudo service apache2 restart
Hey,
I am having a “403 forbidden You don’t have permission to access /pear on this server.” and I have redone the process and cannot figure what is going on
Hi Peter. It means that something is incorrect with the installation. The most likely cause is file permissions or (possibly) Apache configuration. If you are using a fresh installation of Raspbian, this kind of thing should not occur. Cheers, Jim.
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I’ve installed WordPress just fine, but cannot receive contact form entries, I understand I need a mail server? How do I do this?
Hi Alex. I’m afraid I don’t know what is meant by “receive contact form entries”. Can you give more information ?
Cheers,
Jim.
What to do if you have existing blue host domain and WordPress running website from it.
Q1. How transfer all data .
Hi Steven. Transferring a blog from one WordPress server to another is beyond the scope of this article. You could try the “export” and “import” method. Login as admin on the source server, then select Tools->export->download export file. Then on the target server, login as admin and try Tools->import->import from WordPress. Cheers,Jim.
I am having this problem “Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress” when I’m upgrade the php from version 5.6 to 7.2. Turns out that mysql extension is no longer supported in php version 7.2. It is now using mysqli extension. I am using old version of wordpress which still using mysql extension so the problem existed. So what I did is upgraded the wordpress to the core. I used the latest version of wordpress and used filezilla to put the new version to the site. I only overwrite the folder wp-includes and wp-admin and replace all the files in the root folder with the new files from version 7.2
Hi Fractioncalc. You say you are upgrading PHP from version 5.6 to 7.2. However that is not part of the procedure above. (I have just tested the procedure again, with a clean Debian Stretch install, and it works fine). I am not sure why you are trying to upgrade PHP, so it is difficult to offer advice.
PHP 7.0 has just been marked “end of life” at the PHP project, with the last version being 7.0.33 (released January 2019). However, later versions of PHP (7.1, 7.2, 7.3) are not yet available in the Raspbian repositories. So for the time being, the Raspbian repos do not contain a fully supported PHP version, though one is likely to appear within a month or two.
I would recommend continuing to use 7.0 for now, and then do a simple upgrade to a supported version when it becomes available. Compiling PHP 7.x yourself is no easy task, and neither is a custom upgrade. I would not recommend attempting either of those paths unless you have a very pressing need, or a strong commercial case.
Thank you, that was useful! 🙂
Cheers Feriman, glad it was useful. Jim