Installing WordPress on LEMP and Ubuntu 16.04

Updated: 28 September 2026 · Applies to: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Ubuntu 16.04 is no longer supported, so this guide now uses Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Debian 12 works the same way).

Install WordPress on Ubuntu 24.04 with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP-FPM.

Before you start

• A VPS or dedicated server with a fresh Ubuntu 24.04 / Debian 12 or AlmaLinux 9 / Rocky Linux 9 installation, and root or sudo access.
• A domain or subdomain pointing to the server (an A record), if you want HTTPS.
• The system updated: apt update && apt upgrade or dnf upgrade.

Install Nginx, MariaDB and PHP-FPM

Ubuntu 24.04 / Debian 12:

apt install nginx mariadb-server php-fpm php-mysql php-xml php-mbstring php-curl php-zip php-gd php-intl
systemctl enable --now nginx mariadb php8.3-fpm   # php8.2-fpm on Debian 12

AlmaLinux 9 / Rocky Linux 9:

dnf module reset php && dnf module enable php:8.3
dnf install nginx mariadb-server php-fpm php-mysqlnd php-xml php-mbstring php-gd php-intl php-opcache php-pecl-zip
systemctl enable --now nginx mariadb php-fpm

On AlmaLinux 9 / Rocky Linux 9, edit /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf and set user = nginx and group = nginx, then restart php-fpm. Secure MariaDB with mariadb-secure-installation.

Create a database

mariadb -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE wordpress CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'wpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Strong-Password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'wpuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download WordPress

cd /tmp && curl -O https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar xzf latest.tar.gz
mkdir -p /var/www/example.com && cp -a wordpress/. /var/www/example.com/
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/example.com

Then open your domain in a browser and follow the installer: enter the database name, user and password you created, and create the admin account (do not call it "admin").

Create the Nginx server block

Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com and link it into sites-enabled (Ubuntu/Debian), or create /etc/nginx/conf.d/example.com.conf (AlmaLinux/Rocky):

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com www.example.com;
    root /var/www/example.com;
    index index.php index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }
    location ~ \.php$ {
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;   # /run/php-fpm/www.sock on AlmaLinux/Rocky
    }
}

Check and reload: nginx -t && systemctl reload nginx.

Open the firewall

ufw allow 80,443/tcp                                   # Ubuntu / Debian with UFW
firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http --add-service=https && firewall-cmd --reload   # AlmaLinux / Rocky

Add a free SSL certificate

apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx                     # Ubuntu / Debian
dnf install epel-release && dnf install certbot python3-certbot-nginx   # AlmaLinux / Rocky
certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com

Certbot installs a timer that renews the certificate automatically; test it with certbot renew --dry-run.

Finish the installer in your browser, then go to Settings › Permalinks and save to activate pretty links.