How to Configure WordPress with Apache HTTP Server and PHP-FPM

For Alpine Linux Users

If you are using Alpine Linux, you can run the following command to install the necessary packages for proper WordPress installation:

# command for Alpine Linux users
sudo apk add apache2 php-fpm openssh openssh-server-pam mariadb mariadb-client wget nano sudo php-mysqli php-curl php-zip php-gd php-intl php-xml php82-dom php-exif php-fileinfo php-gmp php-mbstring php-iconv php-xmlreader php-xmlwriter php-simplexml php-opcache --no-cache

Note: You can omit the sudo command if you are logged in as the root user.

Configuring Without a2enmod

Some Linux distributions do not include the a2enmod and a2enconf commands. In such cases, you need to manually configure Apache2 files to enable Event MPM and PHP-FPM support.

Folder Structure: Debian-based distributions generally have the following folder structure:

• mods-available, conf-available, sites-available
• mods-enabled, conf-enabled, sites-enabled

Manual Configuration Steps: To enable a module, copy the required .load and .conf files from the mods-available folder to the mods-enabled folder:

# Navigate to the configuration directory
cd /etc/apache2

# Enable Event MPM and required modules
cp mods-available/mpm_event.load mods-enabled/
cp mods-available/mpm_event.conf mods-enabled/
cp mods-available/proxy.load mods-enabled/
cp mods-available/proxy.conf mods-enabled/
cp mods-available/proxy_fcgi.load mods-enabled/
cp mods-available/rewrite.load mods-enabled/
cp mods-available/headers.load mods-enabled/

# Enable PHP-FPM configuration
cp conf-available/php7.4-fpm.conf conf-enabled/

Apache Configuration for Alpine Linux

To set up Apache for Alpine Linux, you first need to install additional Apache2 modules. Run the following command to install the required modules:

sudo apk add apache2-ssl apache2-proxy --no-cache

By default, Apache uses the MPM prefork module. To enable Event MPM, disable the prefork module by commenting out its LoadModule statement (add # at the beginning). To enable any module, ensure the LoadModule line does not start with #. You can manually configure httpd.conf located in the /etc/apache2/ directory with the following changes:

# Comment out the prefork module
# LoadModule mpm_prefork_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_mpm_prefork.so

# Enable the Event MPM module
LoadModule mpm_event_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_mpm_event.so

# Configure Event MPM settings
<IfModule mpm_event_module>
    StartServers              2
    MinSpareThreads           25
    MaxSpareThreads           75
    ThreadLimit               64
    ThreadsPerChild           25
    MaxRequestWorkers         150
    MaxConnectionsPerChild    0
</IfModule>

Enable PHP-FPM Support: Create an Apache php fpm config file in the /etc/apache2/conf.d directory and add the following configuration:

# Enable HTTP Authorization headers
<IfModule setenvif_module>
    SetEnvIfNoCase ^Authorization$ "(.+)" HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=$1
</IfModule>
<FilesMatch ".+\.ph(ar|p|tml)$">
    SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost"
</FilesMatch>

Prompts during mysql_secure_installation

• Enter the root user password when prompted.
• Type y to switch to Unix socket authentication for added security.
• Type n when asked to change the root password.
• Type y to remove anonymous users.
• Type y to disable root login remotely.
• Type y to remove the test database.
• Type y to reload the privilege tables.

Set up the database and users

Open the MySQL shell:

sudo mysql -u root -A

Execute the following queries to create a secure WordPress database:

# Set the root user password
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'root_password';

# Create a database for WordPress
CREATE DATABASE wordpress CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci;

# Create a low-privilege user for WordPress
CREATE OR REPLACE USER 'guest'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password';

# Grant privileges
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `wordpress`.* TO 'guest'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Creating a Site Configuration File

Create an Apache WordPress config file in the /etc/apache2/sites-available directory. Use the nano editor or your preferred text editor:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf

Add the following configuration to set up your WordPress site for a specific domain:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName www.your-domain.com
    ServerAlias your-domain.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/wordpress
    <IfModule dir_module>
        DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
    </IfModule>
</VirtualHost>

To set up WordPress for local access, comment out the ServerName and ServerAlias directives:

# Configuration for accessing WordPress on localhost
<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/wordpress
    <IfModule dir_module>
        DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
    </IfModule>
</VirtualHost>

Next, you can enable HTTPS for your website. For more information on serving your website over HTTPS, refer to our tutorial on installing an SSL certificate for your website.

Enabling the Site Configuration

If the a2ensite command is available, execute the following commands:

# Disable the default site
sudo a2dissite 000-default

# Enable the new WordPress site
sudo a2ensite wordpress

If a2ensite is not available, manually copy the configuration from the sites-available directory to the sites-enabled directory and remove the default configuration file:

sudo rm /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf
sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

For more details on useful Apache2 configurations, check out our post on recommended Apache HTTP Server settings.