From Linux Install to Wordpress

A typical installation of Debian 8.x (Jessie) precedes this where I only select base system and ssh server options during operating system installation.  After installation, this is a typical configuration to get me up and running. These are my notes.
Debian Customization
These are customizations to suit my taste.

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
dpkg-reconfigure dash
echo UseDNS no >>/etc/ssh/sshd_config && /etc/init.d/ssh restart
apt-get install fail2ban vim-nox unzip

Webserver Installation: nginx

wget http://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key
apt-key add nginx_signing.key
echo 'deb http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ jessie nginx' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
echo 'deb-src http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ jessie nginx' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update && apt-get install nginx

nginx Configuration

There are a few customizations I make and I have scripted most of this since it’s repetitive.

sed -i 's/user[ ]*nginx/user www-data/g; s/worker_processes[ ]*1/worker_processes 2/g' /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
sed -i 's/access_log.*;/access_log off;/g' /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
sed -i '/access_log off;/a client_max_body_size 12m;' /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
/etc/init.d/nginx restart

With basic configuration changes made to nginx.conf, I now focus on creating the site configuration.

rm /etc/nginx/conf.d/*
cat <<EOF >>/etc/nginx/conf.d/`hostname`.conf
server {
        listen 80;
        root /var/www;
        index index.php index.html index.htm;
        server_name techish.net www.techish.net;
        location / {
                try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
        }
        location ~ .php$ {
                try_files $uri =404;
                fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name
;
                include fastcgi_params;
                fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
        }
    location ~ /.well-known {
                allow all;
        }
}
EOF

That concludes nginx installation and configuration to THIS point. I’ll revisit toward the end when I implement SSL.

PHP 7 Installation

I use dotdeb to install PHP 7.0 via apt-get.

echo 'deb http://packages.dotdeb.org jessie all' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
echo 'deb-src http://packages.dotdeb.org jessie all' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
wget https://www.dotdeb.org/dotdeb.gpg
apt-key add dotdeb.gpg
apt-get update
apt-get install php7.0-fpm php7.0-mysql php7.0-gd php7.0-mcrypt

PHP 7 Configuration

With PHP7 installation completed, I make a few changes.

sed -i 's/^upload_max_filesize.*/upload_max_filesize = 10m/g; s/^allow_url_fopen.*/allow_url_fopen = Off/g; s/^post_max_size.*/post_max_size = 12m/g' /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini

MySQL (MariaDB) Installation

Installing MariaDB is pretty straight forward with only a minor tweak in the configuration at the end.

apt-get install mariadb-server

MariaDB Configuration

sed -i 's/^bind-address/#bind-address/g; /^#bind-address/a skip-networking' /etc/mysql/my.cnf
mysql_secure_installation

Restart Services & Test

Restart the services and test out things to make sure everything works.

systemctl restart nginx.service
systemctl restart php7-fpm.service
systemctl restart mysql.service

WordPress Installation

WordPress installation is straight forward.

Database Preparation

cd /var/www
mysql -uroot -p -e create database wordpress; grant all on wordpress.* to 'wpuser'@'%' identified by '...'; flush privileges

WordPress Download & Extract

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.zip
unzip latest.zip
mv wordpress/* .
rm -rf wordpress/; rm latest.zip
chown www-data.www-data -R .

WordPress Configuration

At this point, the database is ready to go and I just visit my website to finish the WordPress installation via Web interface.

Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate

Installation

openssl dhparam -out /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem 2048

Add Jessie backports repo and install.

echo 'deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main' >>/etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get install certbot -t jessie-backports

Certificate Generation

I generate a certificate for my top level domain and subdomain.

certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/www -d techish.net
certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/www -d www.techish.net

nginx SSL Configuration

Create a directory in /etc/nginx to store a few snippets of nginx configuration.

mkdir /etc/nginx/ssl

Create SSL parameters configuration file, ssl-params.conf, that we’ll call in our site configuration file.

cat <<EOF >>/etc/nginx/ssl/ssl-params.conf
    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_ciphers EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH;
    ssl_ecdh_curve secp384r1;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
    ssl_session_tickets off;
    ssl_stapling on;
    ssl_stapling_verify on;
    resolver 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 valid=300s;
    resolver_timeout 5s;
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=63072000; includeSubdomains; preload;
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=63072000; includeSubdomains;
    add_header X-Frame-Options DENY;
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
    ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem;
EOF

Create a configuration file, ssl-kreider.conf, that will reference where my top level domain SSL certificate is stored. I call this file from main nginx site configuration file later.

cat <<EOF >>/etc/nginx/ssl/ssl-kreider.conf
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/techish.net/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/techish.net/privkey.pem;
EOF

Create a configuration file, ssl-www-kreider.conf, that will reference where my www subdomain SSL certificate is stored. I call this file from main nginx site configuration file later.

cat <<EOF >>/etc/nginx/ssl/ssl-www-kreider.conf
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.techish.net/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.techish.net/privkey.pem;
EOF

I update my main site’s nginx configuration.

vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/`hostname`.conf

My finalized site configuration file.

server {
        listen 80;
        server_name techish.net www.techish.net;
        return 307 https://techish.net$request_uri;
}
server {
        listen 443 ssl;
        include ssl/ssl-kreider.conf;
        include ssl/ssl-params.conf;
        root /var/www;
        index index.php index.html index.htm;
        server_name techish.net;
        location / {
                try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
        }
        location ~ .php$ {
                try_files $uri =404;
                fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name                                                                                                                               ;
                include fastcgi_params;
                fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
        }
}