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WordPress on Raspberry Pi

Posted by michael on Jun 8, 2012 in Raspberry Pi, Tutorials | 32 comments

This worked for me.

This tutorial will demonstrate how to install and host WordPress on Raspberry Pi. This process assumes you have Debian for Raspberry Pi installed on an SD card. If not, see RPi Easy SD card setup.

Install Apache

WordPress runs on the Apache2 web server. To setup Apache, follow the instructions in my previous post, Raspberry Pi and Apache.

Install MySQL and PHP

Begin by installing the required dependencies. From a terminal:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.5 php5 php5-mysql php5-gd

Next run the MySQL init script:

sudo mysql_install_db

Download and Extract WordPress

Download the latest wordpress source files

wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Extract the downloaded archive:

tar -xvzf latest.tar.gz

Create a directory in /var/www for the WordPress install:

sudo mkdir /var/www/wordpress

Copy over the extacted files:

sudo cp -r ~/wordpress/* /var/www/wordpress

Configure Apache

Next, make a backup of the apache config file, then open it in a text editor:

sudo cp /etc/apache2/apache2.conf /etc/apache2/apache2.conf.bak
sudo vim.tiny /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Add this line to the end of the file:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

And restart Apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Configure MySQL

The next step is to configure MySQL for use with WordPress. WordPress needs a database and user, and permissions set correctly for access. Start the mysql config:

mysql -u root -p

Enter the root MySQL password, then arrive at the mysql prompt

mysql>

Create a database for WordPress, create a user for the database, and set password set the permissions:

CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
CREATE USER wordpressuser;
SET PASSWORD FOR wordpressuser= PASSWORD(“1234″);
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO wordpressuser IDENTIFIED BY ’1234′;
FLUSH TABLES;

Then quit the MySQL client:

exit

Now create a new wordpress configuration based on the sample:

sudo cp /var/www/wordpress/wp-config-sample.php /var/www/wordpress/wp-config.php

And open it up for edit in an editor:

sudo vim.tiny /var/www/wordpress/wp-config.php

Change this:

/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘database_name_here’);

/** MySQL database username */
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘username_here’);

/** MySQL database password */
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password_here’);

to this (substituting password_here with your own from above):

/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’);

/** MySQL database username */
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘wordpressuser’);

/** MySQL database password */
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password_here’);

Finalizing the install

The hard part is over! Now open up a browser and head to the site and finalize the install. To do this, navigate from a browser on another machine on your local network, only substitute the local address of the Raspberry Pi. To find the address of the Raspberry Pi, open a terminal and run:

ifconfig

Then navigate to that address with a trailing /wordpress from a browser on the same local network:

http://192.168.1.100/wordpress

32 Comments

Matt
June 12, 2012

Nice writeup! I’ve gone through this process recently myself. How does the server hold up to more than minimal traffic? I’ve been thinking about setting up an image with WordPress, nginx, and Sqlite as a low-memory alternative.

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- michael
  July 3, 2012
  
  I haven’t tried with nginx or sqlite myself, but I suspect it will be an improvement over the full fledged apache/mysql install!
  
  reply
James
June 29, 2012

Thanks for the explanation. Followed your guide and got WordPress working, although it does seem to ‘lock-up’ easily, needing a restart of the RasPi. How stable do you think it is?

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- michael
  June 29, 2012
  
  Hi James,
  I was experiencing the lock-up issue as well. I’m looking into some options with the memory split, or caching to improve the stability!
  
  reply
Brad
June 30, 2012

Thank you. I can confirm that it works on my Pi with a Sandisk Class 10 Ultra SD (16GB). Serves pages fine. Install only possible remotely. Having issues with ‘lockup’ when using backend to edit content.

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- michael
  July 3, 2012
  
  Hi Brad, thanks for the feedback. My experience with backend editing also sometimes seems to ‘lockup’. I’m going to try with nginx and see if it fares better than apache.
  
  reply
Rafael Edgar Puente
July 3, 2012

when I tried to copy extracted files(sudo cp -r ~/wordpress/* /var/www/wordpress) it keeps giving me error….or asking me to go to –help…for cp command…what am I doing wrong? Need help please.

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- michael
  July 4, 2012
  Hi Rafael, the most likely cause is the wordpress archive is not in the assumed location. The command assumes you have downloaded and extracted the archive to the home directory of the pi user, if you have extracted it somewhere else, you will need to adjust accordingly. Try the cp command with fully qualified paths (update to match your location):
  
  sudo cp -r /home/pi/wordpress/* /var/www/wordpress
  reply
Rafael Edgar Puente
July 4, 2012

you know what….that did it beautifully….thanks a million…

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Jon Egerton
July 18, 2012

I find that the mysql user creation section above doesn’t work – after doing it attempting to log in as wordpressuser gives and access denied.

Instead of the three lines (CREATE USER, SET PASSWORD and GRANT ALL), I found the following single line worked:

GRANT ALL on wordpress.* TO wordpressuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY ‘password’;

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- Laurent Mahé
  September 29, 2012
  
  Thanks Jon
  
  I had the “error establishing a database connection” error message.
  
  Your suggestion solved my problem beautifully
  
  reply
  - Russel
    November 7, 2012
    
    I had same problem using 2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.zip image
    I had also done a
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get upgrade
    this was 7 November 2012
    
    your use of @localhost in the user ID fixed the problem
    
    mysql -u root -p
    GRANT ALL on wordpress.* TO wordpressuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY ‘password’;
    flush tables;
    exit
    
    then connected to web page and all worked!
    
    ===
    Michael, great tutorial/recipe thank you!
    
    reply
IntraIpsum
July 24, 2012

Hey this is great! I’m a big Raspberry Pi fan myself. WordPress would be a fun project to put on the Raspi, and it also helps those of use who are just looking to install something like MySQL and PHP.

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GilDev
August 14, 2012

Cool but for me, I can’t install MySQL and PHP. It say:
“Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or ben moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies
mysql-server-5.1 : Depends: mysql-client-5.1 (>= 5.1.62-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libmysqlclient16 (>= 5.1.50-1) but it is not going to be installed
PreDepends: mysql-common (>= 5.1.62-1) but it is not going to be installed
php5-mysql : Depends: libmysqlclient18 (>= 5.5.24+dfsg-1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.”

I have the last RaspBian image with the last firmware. I made some apt-get update and upgrade but it didn’t change anything.

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- michael
  August 14, 2012
  
  Looks like the newest version of Raspbian has updated the mysql-server-package. Instead of:
  sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.1 php5 php5-mysql php5-gd
  Use this instead:
  sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.5 php5 php5-mysql php5-gd
  Thanks for pointing this out… I have updated the article as well!
  
  reply
  - Steve
    November 29, 2012
    
    Just use mysql-server without the version number and it will get the latest one.
    
    reply
RickNL
September 13, 2012

Hi Michael,

i have a problem, when I follow your tutorial everything went well except when I try to open the website (the apache page works fine). I get a HTTP-500 error. Can you help me with this?

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- kevlar113
  October 17, 2012
  
  You need to go into your site from your localhost and edit the site URL under settings -> general. Once you update that you will be able to see all your content externally.
  
  reply
Lunatic4ever
September 23, 2012

No lockups and using apache with php-apc and apc backend plugin! Works very well!!

reply
Jim
October 8, 2012

I have an interesting problem. If I connect to the server from the localhost I get a correctly formatted webpage. If I connect to it from anyone inside or outside of my network I don’t get graphics. and If I try to login via the login page it gets redirected to 127.0.0.1/wp-login.php which fails. any ideas?

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- Dmitriy
  November 3, 2012
  
  hostname lookup problem
  
  reply
  - Rob
    December 19, 2012
    
    i have this problem too, would you mind giving a little more advice towards a soloution?
    
    reply
    - Rob
      January 23, 2013
      
      i have now fixed this problem, open wordpress admin panel navigate to settings and change the site url and other url from your local ip 192.168.x.x/wordpress to your full ip/wordpress (to find this google search whats my ip) if like me for some reason you can not change the two urls, start a session on the pi terminal, sudo nano var/www/wordpress/wp-config.php
      
      locate the two ip addresses in their and change as appropriate, save and close.
      
      job done. enjoy
      
      reply
lob0426
December 12, 2012

Good write up!
I had several things that needed to be worked out.
I could not add or delete to the “FTP” in wordpress, it was a permissions issue.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data*

To log into the FTP I had to use.
Domain:wordpress
FTPuser:’SQLuser’@localhost
FTPpass:’SQLuser’ password’

Also I developed the site on one RasPi and put it up on another. WordPress really did not like this as it was using the internal IP as it location. When I moved it over I lost the site until I installed phpMyAdmin so I could edit the database and get it back. The settings for the site URL had to be right or it was really slow or not accessible at all. I was using dyndns.

WordPress Address :your.dyndns.tv/wordpress
Site Address :your.dyndns.tv

I hope this helps others get their RasPii up on wordpress!

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Yacine
December 28, 2012

Hi,
I’m getting an error : “Error establishing a database connection”
Any suggestion ?

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- ben
  January 15, 2013
  
  Yeah i get this problem as well and i really want to sort it!
  
  reply
ben
January 15, 2013

Yeah i get the same problem and i really want to sort it!

reply
Nick
February 7, 2013

Great blog, thanks for sharing it with us. Now following you, you maybe also interest in looking at my WordPress blog also.

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Kevin
March 8, 2013

followed to a T but get the same “Error establishing a database connection”

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- Stefan
  April 18, 2013
  
  GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO “user”@”localhost”IDENTIFIED BY “password”;
  solved the “Error establishing a database connection” for me!
  
  reply
backporchgourmet
May 1, 2013

It got a little confusing with the code sections of the posts in italics — I missed some spaces in the syntax and I’m a Linux n00b. Had the database connection problem too, so I just jumped in PHPMyAdmin (I’d previously installed) and set the user and permissions in the GUI. MUCH easier. Thanks for the post! My pi is serving up WP!

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Christopher
May 11, 2013

Hello, I got a problem when I’m traying to setup a wordpress on my raspberry pi.
I get this message:

mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR wordpressuser2= PASSWORD(“1234″);
ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘“1234″)’ at line 1

reply