@urre This is my notes for setting up a VPS optimized for WordPress, with Nginx and PHP5-FPM. I’m setting up MySQL, W3 Total Cache, Git and a few other things. I assume that you already have a VPS with has an allocated a ip adress. Also, you must have a domain.
Nginx?
NGINX is the world’s most popular open source web server for high traffic sites, powering over 100 million properties. Nginx works differently than Apache, mainly with regard to how it handles threads. Nginx has grown in popularity since its release due to its light-weight resource utilization and its ability to scale easily on minimal hardware. Nginx excels at serving static content quickly and is designed to pass dynamic requests off to other software that is better suited for those purposes.
Configure and update your VPS
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Install the Nano editor (or just use Vim)
sudo apt-get install nano
Configure hostname
nano /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
127.0.0.1 myserver
hostname = the name on your VPS
Install Nginx, PHP and PHP5-FPM
sudo apt-get install nginx
sudo apt-get install php5-cli php5-common php5-mysql php5-imagick php5-gd php5-dev
sudo apt-get install php5-fpm php5-cgi php-pear php5-memcache php-apc
Start PHP-FPM
sudo service php5-fpm start
Create a sym link to the default site settings file
cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
sudo ln -s ../sites-available/default default
Start Nginx
sudo service nginx start
You can now visit your domain mywebsite.com and see “Welcome to Nginx”
sudo rm default
sudo service nginx stop
sudo service php5-fpm stop
Remove the symlink igen and stop Nginx
Configure Nginx
cd /etc/nginx
Edit nginx.conf
nano nginx.conf
Add this (gist)
Change worker_processes and worker_connections to match your server. If your VPS has got 6 CPU cores, adjust worker_processes to 6. worker_connections till 6 * 1024 = 6144. Find out how many CPU cores by running
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Go to /sites-avaliable
cd sites-available
Create a file called mywebsite.com
touch mywebsite.com
nano mywebsite.com
Add this (gist)
Create the folder global inside the nginx folder
cd /etc/nginx
sudo mkdir global
cd global
Create the file restrictions.conf
touch restrictions.conf
nano restrictions.conf
Add this: (gist)
Create the file php5-fpm.conf inside the global directory
touch php5-fpm.conf
nano php5-fpm.conf
Add this (gist)
Set up your site
Activate the server configuration with a symlink
cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
sudo ln -s ../sites-available/mywebsite.com.se mywebsite.com
Go to the www folder
cd /var/www
Create a group
sudo groupadd web
Add admin rights
sudo usermod -a -G web YOURUSER
Add the group
sudo chgrp web /var/www
Make the www directory writable
sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www
Assign all files to the group
sudo chmod g+s /var/www
Create a folder for your website
mkdir mywebsite.com
cd mywebsite.com
Create a index.php and try out the configuration
touch index.php
nano index.php
Add phpinfo(); and check so everything works
Start Nginx
sudo service nginx start
Start PHP-FPM
sudo service php5-fpm start
Great success!
Secure SSH
Create a user
adduser --home /home/name name
Add user as sudoer
visudo
Add
name ALL=(ALL) ALL
Turn off root login
nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Add
PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
Install MySQL
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
sudo apt-get install php5-mysql
Create database
mysqladmin -u root -p create databasnamn
Secure MySQL
mysql_secure_installation
Log in
mysql -u root -p
Create user
CREATE USER 'anvnamn'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'c0MpLiCaTeDp@55w0rd';
Grant access
GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'anvnamn'@'localhost';
Logout from the MySQL shell
exit
Manage the database
I prefer to use Sequel Pro . It is a fast, easy-to-use Mac database management application for working with MySQL databases. Simple and looks great. 
Install WordPress
This is outdated. You should use WP-CLI instead.
Istall wget
sudo bash
apt-get update
apt-get -f install
apt-get install wget
Download WordPress
wget http://sv.wordpress.org/wordpress-4.2.2-sv_SE.tar.gz
tar xfz wordpress-4.1-sv_SE.tar.gz
mv wordpress/* ./
rmdir ./wordpress/
rm -f wordpress-3.9.1-sv_SE.tar.gz
mv wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php
Edit wp-config add your credentials and settings
nano wp-config.php
Or use my little bash script wp-installer
Install cURL
sudo apt-get install curl
Install WP-CLI
WP-CLI is a set of command-line tools for managing WordPress installations. You can update plugins, set up multisite installs and much more, without using a web browser.
First, download wp-cli.phar using wget or curl. For example
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar
Then, check if it works:
php wp-cli.phar --info
To be able to type just wp, instead of php wp-cli.phar, you need to make the file executable and move it to somewhere in your PATH. For example:
chmod +x wp-cli.phar
sudo mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp
No try wp --info
Bonus: Add Tab completions.
Setup SSH-keys
We need to connect to the server without using password every time:
mkdir ~/.ssh
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen -t rsa
Own your .ssh folder (for user with rootaccess)
cd ~
sudo chown name .ssh
Copy keys to the server:
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh user@dindoman.se 'cat - >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'
Set correct access
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys && chmod 700 ~/.ssh/
Links
Install Git
apt-get install git-core
Add the git user
adduser git
su git
cd /home/git
mkdir .ssh
chmod 700 .ssh
cd .ssh
touch authorized_keys (Lägg in samma key som root-användaren)
Test
ssh git@mywebsite.com.se
Add remote git repo
git remote add origin git@mywebsite.com.se/var/www/mywebsite.com
Solve the git objects access rights
cd repository.git
sudo chmod -R g+ws *
sudo chgrp -R mygroup *
git config core.sharedRepository true
sudo chown -R git:git .git/
Set git user as sudoer
visudo
git ALL=(ALL) ALL
W3 Total Cache
touch /etc/nginx/sites-available/mywebsite.com
Add
include global/wordpress-w3-total-cache.conf;
Create the w3 settings file
touch /etc/nginx/global/wordpress-w3-total-cache.conf
nano /etc/nginx/global/wordpress-w3-total-cache.conf
Add this (gist)
Also create nginx.conf inside /var/ww/mywebsite.com
touch nginx.conf
nano nginx.conf
Add: (gist)
Change allowed maximum file size
nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
Add for example:
client_max_body_size 30M;
Edit php.ini
nano /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini
Under File Uploads, change to:
upload_max_filesize = 30M;
Reload PHP-FPM and Nginx
service php5-fpm reload
service nginx reload
Read more
Add correct MIME-type for SVG (.svg)
Edit /etc/nginx/mime.types
nano/etc/nginx/mime.types
image/svg+xml svg svgz;
Add correct mime-types for webfonts
if you use webfonts, Nginx can need a helping hand serving the correct mime-types, instead of just the default application/octet-stream. Edit /etc/nginx/mime.types
application/vnd.ms-fontobject eot;
application/x-font-ttfttf;
font/opentype ott;
application/font-woff woff;
Support more file formats
Allow .eps files to be uploaded in wp-admin
add_filter('upload_mimes', 'website_upload_mimes');
function website_upload_mimes ( $existing_mimes=array() ) {
// Add *.EPS files to Media upload
$existing_mimes['eps'] = 'application/postscript';
return $existing_mimes;
}
Some links
Update. If you use Ubuntu 12 och PHP 5.4+, check out:
Fix locale issues
locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8 hu_HU hu_HU.UTF-8
dpkg-reconfigure locales
