How to Manually Install WordPress on Debian 12

Step 1: SSH into the Debian system

ssh root@servername

Step 2: Install nginx, mariadb, and php

1. First update the sources:

apt-get update

apt-get upgrade

2. Install nginx:

apt install nginx

systemctl start nginx

systemctl enable nginx

apt install mariadb-server

3. Install PHP and its additional components:

apt install php php-mysql php-gd php-xml php-mbstring php-curl php-fpm php-mysql php-imagick php-zip php-intl

Step 3: Configure the MariaDB database

1. Log in to the database; MariaDB's initial root password is empty:

mysql -u root -p

2. Create the default database:

CREATE DATABASE [wordpressdatabasename];

3. Create a WordPress database account:

CREATE USER '[wordpressuser]'@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'wordpresspassword';

4. Grant permissions on the database:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON [wordpressdatabasename].* TO [wordpressuser]@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'wordpresspassword';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

EXIT;

Step 4: Configure the nginx service

1. Create and modify the WordPress configuration file in nginx:

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress

The configuration file looks like this:

server {
        listen 80;
        server_name www.yourdomain.com yourdomain.com;
        root /var/www/wordpress;
        index index.php index.html index.htm;
        location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}

location ~ .php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
}

location ~ /.ht {
        deny all;
}

2. Edit the nginx global configuration file:

nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Modify the http{} block

Add:

client_max_body_size 20m;

3. Link the WordPress configuration file into the site configuration folder:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

4. Test whether the configuration is correct:

nginx -t
systemctl restart nginx

Step 5: Configure PHP

Edit the PHP configuration file:

nano /etc/php/8.2/fpm/php.ini

Modify the following parameters:

max_execution_time = 1200
max_input_time = 1200
upload_max_filesize = 200M
post_max_size = 800m

Restart the PHP service:

service php8.2-fpm restart

Step 6: Download and install WordPress

cd /tmp
curl -O https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

tar xzvf latest.tar.gz
cp -a /tmp/wordpress/. /var/www/wordpress

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress