Set Up WordPress on DigitalOcean

Steps

Register a new domain (e.g. NameCheap) and set the domain name servers to:
```
ns1.digitalocean.com
ns2.digitalocean.com
ns3.digitalocean.com
```
Connect to the droplet with PuTTY.
Log into MySQL:
```
mysql -u root -p
```
Create the database and user.

Database should be named like exampledomain_wp. User should be like exampledo_wpuser — MySQL usernames have a 16-char limit, so abbreviate the domain (exampledomain → exampledo) to leave room for the _wpuser suffix.
```
CREATE DATABASE domain_wp;
CREATE USER domain_wpuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY '<strong-password>';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON domain_wp.* TO domain_wpuser@localhost;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
```
Quit MySQL:
```
exit
```

Create a new folder for the WordPress site:

cd /var/www
mkdir domain.com
cd domain.com

Download the latest WordPress package and rename the output folder to public_html:

wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar xzvf latest.tar.gz
mv wordpress public_html
rm latest.tar.gz

Edit the WordPress config:

cd public_html
cp wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php
nano wp-config.php

Set values for DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, and DB_HOST:

/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'domain_wp');

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'domain_wpuser');

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', '<strong-password>');

/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', '127.0.0.1');

Set the KEY and SALT values by overwriting the values generated at https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/. (Hint: Ctrl+K deletes a line in nano.)
Close and save (Ctrl+X, Y, Enter).

Create the uploads folder and grant ownership of wp-content to www-data:

mkdir /var/www/domain.com/public_html/wp-content/uploads
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/domain.com/public_html/wp-content

Configure Apache for the new domain by copying an existing conf:

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
cp example.com.conf domain.com.conf
sudo nano domain.com.conf

Remove any Redirect Match lines if present (Ctrl+K deletes a line).

Change or add config entries as needed:

ServerAdmin admin@domain.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/domain.com/public_html
ServerName domain.com
ServerAlias www.domain.com

Close and save (Ctrl+X, Y, Enter).

Enable the new site and restart Apache:

sudo a2ensite domain.com.conf
sudo service apache2 restart

Edit /etc/hosts:
```
sudo nano /etc/hosts
```
Add a new line for the domain:
```
127.0.0.1 domain.com
```
Close and save (Ctrl+X, Y, Enter).
Add the domain to the DigitalOcean Name Server control panel and point it to the droplet: https://cloud.digitalocean.com/networking/domains
Open the domain "More" menu and add a new CNAME entry for www pointing to domain.com.
Complete the WordPress setup by pointing your browser to www.domain.com:
1. Enter the site title, username, and email.
2. Save the generated password in a password manager.
3. Click the Install WordPress button.
This is no longer needed — WordPress should use the "direct" update method by default. (Previously: install the "SSH SFTP Updater Support" plugin from https://wordpress.org/plugins/ssh-sftp-updater-support/.)
1. Download the file:
```
wget https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/ssh-sftp-updater-support.0.7.1.zip
```
2. Unzip it to the site's plugins folder:
```
unzip ssh-sftp-updater-support.0.7.1.zip -d /var/www/domain.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins
```
3. Log into the WordPress admin and activate the plugin.
4. Install something (update, theme, whatever) to configure the connection settings:
  - Hostname: domain.com
  - SSH/FTP User: root
  - SSH/FTP Password: (leave blank)
  - Select the private key file to upload: DO-private.txt
  - Select SSH2 as the method.
Create a cert and enable HTTPS using certbot:
```
sudo certbot --apache
```
Done!

Steps​

Sources​

Steps

Sources