To install Nginx, MariaDB and PHP, we type the following command

sudo apt update && sudo apt install nginx mariadb-server php8.3-fpm php-mysql -y

Open up your browser and visit: http://ip_address_of_server

Once you do that, you will get a message that nginx is set up correctly

Then run the initial setup wizard of MariaDB

sudo 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!

Reloading privilege tables..

 ... Success!

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y

 ... Success!

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y

 ... Success!

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y

 - Dropping test database...

 ... Success!

 - Removing privileges on test database...

 ... Success!

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

 ... Success!

After that, run the following commands:

sudo mysql -h localhost -u root -p

use mysql;

ALTER USER root@localhost IDENTIFIED VIA mysql_native_password USING PASSWORD("your_pass");

flush privileges;

exit;

Edit the default site file of NGINX

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Uncomment the following and change the version from php7.4 to php8.3

     ....

   location ~ \.php$ {

        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;

     }

    location ~ /\.ht {

        deny all;

    }

Then reload nginx

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Create a test php file to see if php is working properly:

echo "<?php phpinfo() ?>" | sudo tee /var/www/html/test.php

Open up your browser and visit: http://ip_address_of_server/test.php

It should give you info about the PHP version running on your system.

First we create a database for wordpress:

sudo mysql -h localhost -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE wordpress DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;

#MYSQL syntax below. Do not use

#CREATE USER 'wordpressuser'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';

CREATE USER 'wordpressuser'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO 'wordpressuser'@'%';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

EXIT;

Then we install a few more php extensions:

sudo apt install curl php-curl php-gd php-intl php-mbstring php-soap php-xml php-xmlrpc php-zip

Then we install wordpress by running the following commands:

cd /tmp

curl -LO https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

tar xzvf latest.tar.gz

cp /tmp/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php /tmp/wordpress/wp-config.php

sudo rm -r /var/www/html/*

sudo cp -a /tmp/wordpress/. /var/www/html/

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html

cd /var/www/html/

Next, let’s make some changes to the main WordPress configuration file.

When you open the file, you’ll start by adjusting some secret keys to provide some security for our installation. WordPress provides a secure generator for these values so that you don’t have to come up with values on your own. These are only used internally, so it won’t hurt usability to have complex, secure values here.

To grab secure values from the WordPress secret key generator, type:

curl -s https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/

You will get back unique values that look something like this:

Warning: It is important that you request unique values each time. Do NOT copy the values shown below!

define('AUTH_KEY',         '1jl/vqfs<XhdXoAPz9 DO NOT COPY THESE VALUES c_j{iwqD^<+c9.k<J@4H');

define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'E2N-h2]Dcvp+aS/p7X DO NOT COPY THESE VALUES {Ka(f;rv?Pxf})CgLi-3');

define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'W(50,{W^,OPB%PB<JF DO NOT COPY THESE VALUES 2;y&,2m%3]R6DUth[;88');

define('NONCE_KEY',        'll,4UC)7ua+8<!4VM+ DO NOT COPY THESE VALUES #`DXF+[$atzM7 o^-C7g');

define('AUTH_SALT',        'koMrurzOA+|L_lG}kf DO NOT COPY THESE VALUES  07VC*Lj*lD&?3w!BT#-');

define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'p32*p,]z%LZ+pAu:VY DO NOT COPY THESE VALUES C-?y+K0DK_+F|0h{!_xY');

define('LOGGED_IN_SALT',   'i^/G2W7!-1H2OQ+t$3 DO NOT COPY THESE VALUES t6**bRVFSD[Hi])-qS`|');

define('NONCE_SALT',       'Q6]U:K?j4L%Z]}h^q7 DO NOT COPY THESE VALUES 1% ^qUswWgn+6&xqHN&%');

These are configuration lines that you can paste directly in your configuration file to set secure keys. Copy the output you received now.

Now, open the WordPress configuration file:

sudo nano /var/www/html/wp-config.php

Find the section that contains the dummy values for those settings. It will look something like this:

. . .

define('AUTH_KEY',         'put your unique phrase here');

define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'put your unique phrase here');

define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'put your unique phrase here');

define('NONCE_KEY',        'put your unique phrase here');

define('AUTH_SALT',        'put your unique phrase here');

define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here');

define('LOGGED_IN_SALT',   'put your unique phrase here');

define('NONCE_SALT',       'put your unique phrase here');

. . .

Comment those lines with /*     */ and paste in the values you copied from the command line below the commented lines:

/var/www/html/wp-config.php

. . .

define('AUTH_KEY',         'VALUES COPIED FROM THE COMMAND LINE');

define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'VALUES COPIED FROM THE COMMAND LINE');

define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'VALUES COPIED FROM THE COMMAND LINE');

define('NONCE_KEY',        'VALUES COPIED FROM THE COMMAND LINE');

define('AUTH_SALT',        'VALUES COPIED FROM THE COMMAND LINE');

define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'VALUES COPIED FROM THE COMMAND LINE');

define('LOGGED_IN_SALT',   'VALUES COPIED FROM THE COMMAND LINE');

define('NONCE_SALT',       'VALUES COPIED FROM THE COMMAND LINE');

. . .

Next, let’s modify some of the database connection settings at the beginning of the file. You’ll have to adjust the database name, the database user, and the associated password that was configured within MySQL.

The other change you should make is to set the method that WordPress uses to write to the filesystem. Since you’ve given the web server permission to write where it needs to, you can explicitly set the filesystem method to “direct”. Failure to set this with our current settings would result in WordPress prompting for FTP credentials when we perform some actions. Add this setting below the database connection settings, or anywhere else in the file:

/var/www/html/wp-config.php

. . .

define( 'DB_NAME', 'wordpress' );

/** MySQL database username */

define( 'DB_USER', 'wordpressuser' );

/** MySQL database password */

define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'password' );

. . .

define( 'FS_METHOD', 'direct' );

Save and close the file when you’re done.

Now make a backup of the default config of nginx

sudo mv /etc/nginx/sites-available/default{,.backup}

Finally recreate the file and append the following

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

upstream php {

        server unix:/tmp/php-cgi.socket;

        server 127.0.0.1:9000;

}

server {

        ## Your website name goes here.

        server_name localhost;

        location ~ \.php$ {

        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;

}

        ## Your only path reference.

        root /var/www/html;

        ## This should be in your http block and if it is, it's not needed here.

        index index.php;

        location = /favicon.ico {

                log_not_found off;

                access_log off;

        }

        location = /robots.txt {

                allow all;

                log_not_found off;

                access_log off;

        }

        location / {

                # This is cool because no php is touched for static content.

                # include the "?$args" part so non-default permalinks doesn't break when using query string

                try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;

        }

        location ~ \.php$ {

                #NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini

                include fastcgi_params;

                fastcgi_intercept_errors on;

                fastcgi_pass php;

                #The following parameter can be also included in fastcgi_params file

                fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;

        }

        location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico)$ {

                expires max;

                log_not_found off;

        }

}

Then reload nginx

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Finally type the IP address of the server in the browser and you will be greated with a wordpress installation screen. Then set your password and you will be able to run wordpress successfully.