Step-by-step Guide to Install WordPress on a Raspberry Pi
WordPress is an interesting tool to manage a website (I know what I’m talking about, this website is running on WordPress!). It’s possible to install it on Raspberry Pi, and I will share with you an ultimate guide to install a functional WordPress on Raspberry Pi from scratch.
To install WordPress on a Raspberry Pi, three services should be installed first: Apache, MySQL and PHP.
Then WordPress can be downloaded on the official website and the files extracted into the web directory of the Raspberry Pi (/var/www).
I’m going to assume that your Raspberry Pi is empty, or that you want to reinstall one just for WordPress.
So, here you have the necessary information to start from scratch.
If this isn’t the case, and you’ve already completed some steps, you can use the summary below to start where you left off.
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Install Raspberry Pi OS
I have an entire article on how to install Raspberry Pi OS that you can check first if you want, but I’ll give you the short version here.
Download Raspberry Pi OS
First, you need to download the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS from the official website.
If you only want to install WordPress, the lite version may be enough. You’ll have to install it without the GUI, but it shouldn’t be too complicated.
Download the image and continue.
Flash an SD Card with Raspberry Pi OS
Then I recommend using Etcher.
If you haven’t installed it yet, get it from the official website.
It’s a tool that allows you to flash an SD card easily on Linux, Mac, or Windows.
- Start Etcher.
- Select the location of the Raspberry Pi OS image.
- Choose your SD card.
- Click on Flash.

Once the SD card is ready, eject it and insert in your Raspberry Pi.
First Boot
The installation is automatic, you just have to start your Raspberry Pi, and Raspberry Pi OS will launch.
GUI
If you chose the Desktop version, a welcome menu will open:
- Choose your language preferences.
- Change the default password.
- Connect to the Wi-Fi if necessary.
- Accept system updates.
- Reboot the Raspberry Pi.
If everything works fine, you can move on.
Otherwise, it will be required at least to succeed to connect the network and to change the password (the following paragraph can help you).
Lite
If you chose the lite version, you’ll have to do the same thing but by hand.
- Login:
- Default login: pi
- Default password: raspberry
- Change the password:
passwd
- Use raspi-config to configure network and change language preferences if needed (nothing to do if Ethernet with DHCP):
sudo raspi-config
- Once connected to the Internet, update your system:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade - Reboot.
If everything is ok, you can move on.
Are you a bit lost in the Linux command line? Check this article first for the most important commands to remember, and a free downloadable cheat sheet so you can have the commands at your fingertips.
Enable SSH
SSH is a secure remote connection protocol, which allows you to launch commands from another computer on the network.
Unless it isn’t possible for you, I strongly recommend using SSH for the rest of this guide.
It will be much simpler to copy commands, test, etc. from your usual computer.
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By default, the service doesn’t start on Raspberry Pi.
So we will enable SSH and connect to it before continuing.
GUI
To enable SSH through the GUI, go to the applications menu, then Preferences > Raspberry Pi Configuration > Interfaces.
Check Enabled for the SSH line.
Terminal
You can also launch the terminal and type this command:sudo service ssh start
Autorun at each boot
The SSH service doesn’t start automatically when the Raspberry Pi is started.
If necessary you can start it with each reboot, by typing this command:sudo crontab -e
And adding this line:@reboot /usr/sbin/service ssh start
Connect
You can now connect to your Raspberry Pi in SSH.
If you aren’t familiar with SSH, I recommend you read my two articles about it before continuing:
– How to connect in SSH?
– What is the IP address of my Raspberry Pi?
Install a web server (Apache, PHP)
Introduction
WordPress is a web application, written in PHP.
We need a web server to make it available so that we will set up all the components of a LAMP server:
– L: Linux (Raspberry Pi OS)
– A: Apache
– M: Mysql (MariaDB)
– P: PHP
We already have the “L” in place with our Raspberry Pi OS installation, so let’s go to Apache.
Install Apache
Apache is the most popular web server on the internet.
Its role is to provide visitors with HTML files that will then be interpreted by browsers.
Install Apache with apt:
sudo apt-get install apache2
It works!
You can now navigate to the default web page by typing the IP address of the Raspberry Pi into a browser (http: //X.X.X.X).
You should see something like this:

Install PHP
PHP is a programming language, which will allows you to create dynamic web pages (e.g. display to add your name dynamically in the page).
We need to install PHP and allow Apache to use it:
sudo apt-get install php
Hello world
To make sure that PHP is active, we will do the following test:
- Go to the folder /var/www/html.
cd /var/www/html
- Create and edit the test.php file.
sudo nano test.php
- Paste the following PHP code.
<?php echo "Hello World!"; ?>
- Save and close.
Then go to http://X.X.X.X/test.php and watch.
It should display only “Hello World!”.
If so, everything works fine so far; you can move on.
Install a database server (MariaDB)
Introduction
We are now able to create a website in HTML and PHP.
But WordPress needs a little more; it requires a database to store all posts, pages, and configurations
For that, we will install MariaDB, a free fork of MySQL which exists since the acquisition of MySQL by Oracle
Installation
To install it, nothing more simple, let’s use again apt:
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server
It takes a little longer than the previous ones :).
Configuration
Access to the database is protected by a password, which may be different from the one of the users.
By default, only the root user has access without a password from their account. So, we will connect to it and create a new account for WordPress.
- Connect to the MySQL CLI:
sudo mysql -uroot
- Create a new user:
CREATE USER 'wordpress'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
- Create a new database:
CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
- Give WordPress user all privileges on the new database:
GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO 'wordpress'@'localhost';
- Quit the MySQL CLI:
quit
PHP MySQL package
To allow PHP to connect to MySQL, a last small package must be installed:
sudo apt-get install php-mysql
Restart Apache to apply:
sudo service apache2 restart
Test
Again, let’s do a quick test to make sure the connection is functional:
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- Try to connect to MySQL.
mysql -u wordpress -p
- Enter the user password.
- Check if the user can view the new database:
SHOW DATABASES;
- Quit:
quit
If you see at least the WordPress database, then you can continue and move to the WordPress installation itself.
If you want to learn more about the database server, I have an entire article about it that you can find here.
Install WordPress
Download
WordPress offers its software under two versions:
- A version hosted on their servers, WordPress.com.
- A version to download, WordPress.org.
So you have to use the second option to use it on your Raspberry Pi.
Download WordPress from the official website.
Copy the link (right click on it) and download it to the Raspberry Pi via SSH:
sudo wget https://wordpress.org/latest.zip -O /var/www/html/wordpress.zip
Uncompress
Move to the web folder and uncompress the file:
cd /var/www/html sudo unzip wordpress.zip
Permissions
To avoid permissions problems with WordPress, and to avoid using the sudo later, we can modify the rights on the WordPress files:
sudo chmod 755 wordpress -R sudo chown www-data wordpress -R
This will give full permissions to Apache, and read/execution to others.
Configuration
The WordPress code is now in place; it remains only to configure it, i.e.:
- Configure the connection to the database.
- Create a login for the administration of WordPress.
Access the installation wizard by pointing your browser at http://X.X.X.X/wordpress:

Click Let’s Go Button.
On the next screen, fill the form with the MySQL user created before.
You should have something like this:

Validate, and the wizard will ask you to run the installation.
Click the button and wait.
On the next screen you have to choose the site name, and create the administrator user:

Fill in the fields with what you want, then validate.
It will take a few moments.
Here we are!
The configuration is complete! You can go back to the address http://X.X.X.X/wordpress to see your WordPress website live!
The wizard offers you to go directly to the administration page, which we will talk about next.
Extra Tips for WordPress
WordPress introduction
I won’t go into much detail in using WordPress; this is not the goal here.
But now that it’s installed, I will give you two or three tips to get started.
Admin and Front
WordPress is composed of two parts:
- Administration: accessible by adding /wp-admin to the URL, it allows you to configure your site and add content.
- Front: this is the part visible to all visitors.
When you are logged in, the top bar allows you to switch from one to the other easily.
Appearance
WordPress comes with a basic design, but it’s possible to customize your site as you wish.
To get started, go to Appearance> Themes.
Here you can add free themes from the list.
In the Appearance menu, you can also manage your site menus and widgets.
A widget is a block that can be integrated into the sidebar for example to display a search engine or an image.
Plugins
Similar to Raspberry Pi, WordPress provides a scalable foundation.
You can install plugins, to add additional features to your website or your admin.
Go to Plugins > Add new to see a list of all plugins available.
Pages and Posts
Once your site is personalized, it’s time to add content.
For this you can create two types of content:
- Pages: These are static pages, which contain content. For example your homepage or a contact form.
- Posts: that’s all the rest of the content, they are grouped into categories to make it easier for users to search later.
You will be able to add your pages and categories to your menus, and the posts will appear automatically.
Services management
Let’s go back to our services that allow you to run WordPress: Apache, PHP, and MySQL.
You need to know that there are commands to start or stop these services.
This may be useful in case of a crash, or if you want to stop them to cut access to the site.
Here are the commands:
sudo service apache2 start | stop | restart | reload sudo service mysql start | stop | restart | reload
As I said above, PHP is a module of Apache, so there is no particular command to launch.
If Apache is running, the PHP pages will be displayed correctly.
Services configuration files
I will also tell you where to find the configuration files if you ever want or need to make changes:
Apache : /etc/apache2
PHP : /etc/php
MySQL : /etc/mysql
In a WordPress installation, you normally don’t need to touch the configuration.
But if this article makes you want to try other things, it could be useful.
PHPMyAdmin
PHPMyAdmin is a handy tool that you can use on a LAMP installation.
This is a web interface that will allow you to access your MySQL databases in a more intuitive way.
You will be able to view and modify the data, create users, manage rights and supervise the MySQL server.
To install it, use the following command:
sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin
Choose apache2 as your web server when asked.
You can skip database configuration.
Once the installation is complete, the interface is available at http://X.X.X.X/phpmyadmin.
Log in with your WordPress account to see the WordPress database.
Share the website on the Internet
If you want to share this newly created website on the internet, it is quite possible.
You simply have to redirect a port from your internet box on the port 80 of Raspberry Pi = to be able to connect to the site by using the public IP address of your Internet connection:
Public IP:PORT => Raspberry Pi IP: 80
So you can access the website with http://Y.Y.Y.Y:PORT/wordpress.
Y.Y.Y.Y is your public IP, and PORT the port you choose.
If you do not have a fixed IP address, you can inquire about dynamic DNS services that allow you to use a web address that will be constantly updated with your new IP address.
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Conclusion
So you learned to install a LAMP server on Raspberry Pi and to install WordPress to use it.
You also had some tips to go further with your installation of WordPress.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that WordPress works pretty well on Raspberry Pi, while it happens to be rather slow on some professional web hosting.
Can be a project idea to think about!
If your WordPress site is important, like with real traffic from remote users (not only you), it’s probably a good idea to put something in place to monitor it. You can read my article on the topic here: The Definitive Guide To Monitor A Website On Raspberry Pi
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Hi,
Thanks for the notes. everything worked as expected but if I try to access the web server WordPress site on the local LAN I seem to get the webpage but without any formatting. Do you have any suggestions as to what I’m doing wrong?
Hi Howard
I don’t know if this is it, but I googled a bit (“broken wordpress site serves pages without formatting”) and found this page with a few tips as the first hit. There are more hits that might help. Also, as you’re on a local LAN maybe a firewall rule on your LAN client or router or WordPress server is blocking remote content from the WAN or your WordPress server to your LAN client, or blocking insecure content while letting secure content through, or maybe SSL is required to send/receive secure content but you don’t have SSL working.
https://docs.wp-rocket.me/article/138-my-site-has-no-styles-and-looks-broken
* Find out what the error is
* Insecure content from CDN
* Security restriction
* 404 on minified files
Perfect!!! Thank you.
Hi,
Thank you for taking the time and the trouble to produce this guide. Glad you included the MariaDB instructions that while probably transparent to the user using MySQL, making it explicit helps reduce anxiety.
I had an issue with “Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress.” Searching for solutions for this problem was hard as the information available is for php5 or php7. Several attempts at apt-get update and install were unsuccessful. Only when I ventured into changing the CLI request to php7.3, the one running in my installation, was I able to get the installation going.
One question remains in my future, if you have the time. Is it possible to make this WordPress installation answer to traffic coming in via wifi? I plan to use it in areas of low economic resources an am hoping to this can serve as a communication tool in a small isolated community. I would appreciate if you shared how to do this.
Hi Eusebio,
Yes, it works the same via Wi-Fi
Just use the Wi-Fi IP address to access the WordPress website
If you have any issue let me know, I may have misunderstood your question
Hello,
Thanks again for your work and for the reply. I set up a new site using your instructions. Everything went well. Actually, you understood what I wanted to know, yet my question could have been more specific.
Cheers.
Thanks for your message Eusebio 🙂
How do I set this up so I can get the site to work without the /worpress?
I can remotely access the wordpress site from my domain name/wordpress.
I tired, with a fresh installation, following all the instructions, the only difference is I unzipped the wpfolder contents directly in /var/www/html.
Changed –
sudo chmod 755 html -R
sudo chown www-data html -R
In wp-admin I changed
WordPress Address (URL)= http://myowndomainname
Site Address (URL)= http://myowndomainname
But I cannot connect to it from the internet. Only on my LAN.
Please help
Hi Dan,
So http://IP is working but not http://domainname.com ?
Did you change your DNS and router configuration to make this works?
If this is ok, the issue probably comes from the Apache configuration (maybe it doesn’t respond on any IP address, or the domain name is not correctly configured in the sites-enabled folder
At “Install a database server (MariaDB)”
In “Connect to the MySQL CLI” is:
sudo mysql -uroot -p
Thanks.
Oups!
Thanks for your comment, it’s fixed 🙂
I have install like this guide for a few weeks ago and everything is working but wordpress say i run on an old php version of PHP (7.3.22-1+0~20200909.67+debian10~1.gbpdd7b72) and i have installed a new version (7.4.10) and my raspberry pi says it is installed but wordpress still say i have the old installed and i don´t know how i will get wordpress to take the new version!
I have try på restart raspberry, apache2 and mariadb but no change! What do ido wrong?
Hi,
Maybe if you still have both versions, you need to tell Apache which one to use
Something like:
sudo a2dismod php7.3
sudo a2enmod php7.4
Or uninstall PHP 7.3 if you don’t need it anymore
It´s works!
Now i have some other questions…
1) How to uninstall the php7.3 installations?
2) Now my wordpress alarming on missing php modules:
curl, mbstring, imagick, zip and gd is not installed or disactivated.
How can i installed them?
1/ “sudo apt remove php7.3 php7.3-common” should do the job
2/ if you added a repository for php7.4, you can install them with “sudo apt install php7.4-curl php7.4-zip etc.”.
If no repository, I recommended adding one, for example: https://deb.sury.org/
It works, now i have only php7.4 installed and all the modules are installed and running and wordpress don´t alarming anymore…
Thanx for quick and easy explained for a newbie on this!
The most guides here on internet are for thoose how already knows how the terminal is working and knows all commands.
Thanx again for doing this easy!
how can one change the index of the website… every time i do it it ether errors out or removes all the graphics on the wordpress website
Hi,
What do you mean by “change the index”? The design?
Examples of errors you get?
Thanks for this helpful tutorial! This will make it easy for me to put WordPress on a Pi.
I am concerned that it doesn’t mention how to keep WordPress up to date for security. WordPress plugins and themes have new security problems almost daily. A Raspberry Pi could save me some money (instead of paying someone monthly for WordPress hosting), but I don’t want to add yet another insecure machine to the Internet. There are already so many routers and IoT devices that are used by criminals (and even malicious governments) to launch their attacks (DDoS, ransomware, spam, infiltration, click-fraud, phishing, etc).
Do you have any tips on how to setup a Pi with WordPress in a way that won’t require a sysadmin to be constantly vigilant?
A good, basic guide, thanx!
One thing you might want to edit: after installing the php-mysql package you need to restart apache2 via sudo systemctl restart apache2. Otherwise you’ll get the “you’re missing a required extension” error from WordPress when you try to access the site to do the initial configuration. At least that’s what happened to me.