How to install WordPress on CentOS 7 with LAMP (Tutorial)

WordPress + LAMP is the classic web hosting setup.

Sure, there are other software stack options for hosting WordPress (some of our team is partial to LEMP). But in terms of wide implementation and usage for websites across the globe, nothing compares to WordPress with LAMP.

So today we’ll show you how to get serve your website to the world by installing WordPress on CentOS 7 using a LAMP stack.

Want to install WordPress but not on CentOs?
👉Click here for our WordPress + Ubunbu 18.04 tutorial
👉Click here for our WordPress + Debian 9 tutorial

WordPress + LAMP: the most popular CMS and web server

WordPress is a powerhouse—over 34% of all websites online today use it—that’s over 22 million websites.

And for sites using a CMS (content management system), it towers over the competition with 60% of the market share.

Meanwhile, Apache (a key piece of the LAMP stack) is the world’s most popular web server.

So, you can see why having the WordPress/LAMP installation in your pocket is key for any developer or anyone looking to host their own blog or website.

How to install WordPress on CentOS 7 using a LAMP stack

In this tutorial, I will show you how to install WordPress with LAMP on Centos 7.

Prerequisites for installing WordPress on CentOS 7

Before we get started, you’ll need to have the following set up:

• An instance of CentOS 7
• SSH access to the server
• User with sudo privileges.
• A good internet connection

With all the prerequisites in place, let’s dive in!

Step 1: Install the Remi repository

The latest version of WordPress requires PHP 7.3 or later, so you’ll need to install the Remi repository first.

To achieve this, execute the command:

$ sudo yum -y install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm

By default, CentOS 7 ships with PHP 5.4 which is no longer supported by developers and isn’t compatible with the latest WordPress version (WordPress 5.2.2). So you’ll need to disable PHP 5.4 using the yum config manager which is provided by the yum-utils tool.

To do this, first, install yum-utils package.

$ sudo yum install yum-utils

Next, disable PHP 5.4.

$ sudo yum-config-manager --disable remi-php54

And now enable PHP 7.3 as shown.

$ sudo yum-config-manager --enable remi-php73

To verify that you have PHP 7.3 installed in your system, run the following command.

$ php -v

Sample output:

Step 2: Install LAMP stack

Since WordPress is both a front-end and back-end system and most of the administration will be done via browser, you need to install a LAMP stack to handle all that. LAMP is an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP.

For this guide, I will use MariaDB which is a fork of MYSQL and provides superior performance.

To install the LAMP stack execute the command below.

$ sudo yum install httpd mariadb mariadb-server php php-common php-mysql php-gd php-xml php-mbstring php-mcrypt

With all the components installed, let’s start the Apache webserver.

$ sudo systemctl start httpd

To enable Apache on boot, run

$ sudo systemctl enable httpd

Next, you need to start the MariaDB database server. Run the command

$ sudo systemctl start mariadb

Again, to enable it on boot, run

$ sudo systemctl enable mariadb

By default, MariaDB does not provide protection against anonymous users. Therefore, we need to manually harden the security of the MariaDB server by running the following command.

$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

Answer all the questions with the security of the database server in mind. Be sure to disallow anonymous login and remote root login, and remove the test database. Finally, flush privileges for the changes to take effect.

Step 3: Create a database for WordPress

With MariaDB installed and secured, it’s time to create a database to accommodate WordPress files during & after the installation.

Log in to the database server.

$ sudo mysql -u root -p

Create a database for WordPress.

CREATE DATABASE wordpressdb;

Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Next, create a user that will be associated with the WordPress database

CREATE USER 'wordpress_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword!';

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Next, grant all permissions to the user on the database

GRANT ALL ON wordpressdb.* TO 'wordpress_user'@'localhost';

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Finally, flush the privileges to save all the changes.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

To exit from the database server, run

EXIT;

Bye

To apply the changes, restart the MariaDB server by running the following command.

$ sudo systemctl restart mariadb

Step 4: Download WordPress

With the WordPress database already created, proceed and download the WordPress tarball from WordPress repository as shown.

$ cd /tmp && sudo wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

This downloads the WordPress tarball in the /tmp directory

Next, extract the WordPress tarball file a shown.

$ sudo tar -xvf latest.tar.gz

This extracts the tarball into a folder labeled wordpress. This contains all the WordPress files that will be essential as we move along.Move the ‘WordPress’ folder to the Webroot directory /var/www/html a shown

$ sudo mv wordpress /var/www/html/

At this point, you need to change permissions of the WordPress folder to user ‘Apache’ as shown

$ sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/wordpress

Also, be sure to change file permissions as shown below

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

Next, you need to create the upload directory manually as shown.

$ sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/uploads

We need to give the Apache webserver rite permissions to the newly created uploads folder. This will enable Apache to create directories and files.

Issue the command below to accomplish this

$ chown -R :apache /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/uploads

Next, navigate to the WordPress directory.

$ cd /var/www/html/wordpress/

Proceed and rename the wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php as shown:

$ mv wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php

Open the newly renamed file using your favorite text editor. I will be using the default editor Vim.

$ sudo vim wp-config.php

Scroll and locate the database settings as shown

Fill out the database details accordingly as defined when creating the WordPress database in Step 3 above.

In our case, the details are shown.

Save and exit the text editor.

Step 5: Run WordPress installation on your web browser

At this point, you’ve finished all the server configurations for your WordPress installation.

The final step is to complete the installation via a web browser.

To do this, launch your web browser and browser your server’s IP address or domain name
http://server_IP_address or http://YOUR-DOMAIN

The first page will prompt you to select the language.

Click on your preferred language and hit the ‘Continue’ button.

In the next step fill in the additional information required such as ‘Site Name’, ‘Username’ , ‘Password’, and ‘Email address’.

Once you’ve filled in all the required fields, click on ‘Install WordPress’

If all went well, you will be directed to a “Success” page. Click the “Login” button to head to your login page.

Fill in your credentials to log in and you’ll head to the world-famous WordPress dashboard that you see here:

You did it! You just installed WordPress on CentOS 7!

It’s as simple as that– if you’ve made it this far then, you’ve installed WordPress with LAMP on CentOS 7.

So, now you’re ready to get to work designing your new blog or website and creating some killer content for your visitors.

If you are just getting started with WordPress, the good news is that there are TONS of free resources for learning and customization. If you were able to install LAMP on your server and execute the WordPress setup, then WordPress itself should be a piece of cake!

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