Wordpress FAMP setup

Prerequisites

This assumes a FAMP stack has already been installed/configured ready for Wordpress installation and configuration.

PHP

Wordpress requires the PHP modules php56-xml, php56-hash, php56-gd, php56-curl, php56-tokenizer, php56-zlib and php56-zip to be installed. It also requires the php56-mysql port, however this port should of been installed as part of the FAMP stack. To installed the required ports (tip: use whereis to find the location of a port i.e. whereis php56-xml will return php56-xml: /usr/ports/textproc/php56-xml):

cd /usr/ports/textproc/php56-xml && sudo make config-recursive install distclean
cd /usr/ports/security/php56-hash && sudo make config-recursive install distclean
cd /usr/ports/graphics/php56-gd && sudo make config-recursive install distclean
cd /usr/ports/ftp/php56-curl && sudo make config-recursive install distclean
cd /usr/ports/devel/php56-tokenizer && sudo make config-recursive install distclean
cd /usr/ports/archivers/php56-zlib && sudo make config-recursive install distclean
cd /usr/ports/archivers/php56-zip && sudo make config-recursive install distclean

If mpm_event_module is being used for Apache, OpenSSL also needs a seperate install on PHP:

cd /usr/ports/security/php56-openssl && sudo make config-recursive install distclean

OR

Use FreeBSD's PHP extensions ports to select and install all the common PHP modules (using the mouseclick to choose what gets installed) with:

cd /usr/ports/lang/php56-extensions && sudo make config-recursive install distclean

Note: To remove the installation of ports for the php extensions port, use the command cd /usr/ports/lang/php56-extensions && sudo make deinstall distclean && sudo make rmconfig-recursive and then follow the previous command to reconfigure/install once again.

Restart Apache after installation of PHP extensions:

sudo apachectl graceful

MySQL

Enter the MySQL CLI replacing [username] with the MySQL username previously setup (default is root) and enter password when prompted:

mysql -u [username] -p

Create a database for the application, replacing [application] for the application's database name:

CREATE DATABASE [application];

Create a MySQL user for the application, replacing [application_user] with the username and [application_user_password] with the password:

CREATE USER [application_user]@localhost IDENTIFIED BY '[application_user_password]';

Grant access for the new user to the new database (replacing [application] for the application's database name and [application_user] with the username used previously):

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON [application].* TO [application_user]@localhost;

Flush all priveledges for this to take effect:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit MySQL CLI:

exit

Apache

Open up the Apache config file:

sudo ee /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.conf

Uncomment rewrite_module module by removing the # so it looks like this:

LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache24/mod_rewrite.so

Corrent file routing for Wordpress can be setup in two ways, using htaccess files or

URI routing with .htaccess

This allows htaccess files to be put in web directories and perform directory specific overrides, however it does slow down Apache as Apache needs to look for where these htaccess files are. Currently PHP-FPM does not support this method.

Find the <Directory "/usr/local/www/apache24/data"> section, then find AllowOverride None and change None to All, like so:

AllowOverride All

OR

URI routing with http.d

This means htaccess files will not be read in web directories, this is a slightly less in-flexible method but is faster for Apache as it does not need to look for .htaccess files. Currently PHP-FPM can only support this method.

Find the <Directory "/usr/local/www/apache24/data"> section, then find AllowOverride None and enter the following below it to route Wordpress URIs correctly (note: any data normally put inside a htaccess file for Wordpress will be put in the http.d file instead):

RewriteEngine On
     RewriteBase /
     RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
     RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

Save, exit and then restart Apache with:

sudo service apache24 restart

Permissions

If an SFTP client is going to be used to interactive with files, having a user with root priveledges via the wheel user group can cause issues with the default folder permissions 755 because these do not run sudo commands. Changing the permission to grant rwx access to everyone who is in the folder's group (wheel) will prevent permissions issues from these programs:

sudo chmod -R 775 /usr/local/www/apache24/data

Wordpress

Permissions

Wordpress's /uploads folder needs to be writable by the server (Apache) to allow Wordpress to write to that folder. Apache uses the user account www on FreeBSD, thus adding this folder to the www group, keeping ownership to the root admin (or what it currently is) and changing permissions to both group and owner allows both the users to operate on the directory:

sudo chown -R <root_or_current_owner_user>:www path/to/wordpress/project/uploads && chmod -R 775 path/to/wordpress/project/uploads

Plugins & frameworks

Some plug-ins or frameworks require additional PHP extensions and/or Apache modules to be installed to operate. Here is a list of some Wordpress additional softwares and the required additional dependencies.

Bedrock

Requires c-type PHP extension:

cd /usr/ports/textproc/php55-ctype && sudo make config-recursive install distclean

Wordfence

Requires filter and JSON PHP extensions:

cd /usr/ports/security/php56-filter && sudo make config-recursive install distclean
cd /usr/ports/devel/php56-json && sudo make config-recursive install distclean

Create Wordfence logs file and set permissions to Apache:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/www/apache24/data/web/app/wflogs && sudo chown www:www /usr/local/www/apache24/data/web/app/wflogs

WooCommerce

Requires filter PHP extension:

cd /usr/ports/security/php56-filter && sudo make config-recursive install distclean

W3 Total Cache

Requires additional PHP extensions and Apache modules.

Install the following PHP extensions:

cd /usr/ports/databases/pecl-memcache && sudo make config-recursive install distclean
cd /usr/ports/www/php5-tidy && sudo make config-recursive install distclean
cd /usr/ports/www/php56-opcache && sudo make config-recursive install distclean

Ensure PHP extensions are added to the extensions.ini (although these might be automatically added) (???):

/usr/local/etc/php/extensions.ini

Open up php.ini:

sudo ee /usr/local/etc/php.ini

Add the following to the php.ini (if not already present) to enable opcache, save and exit (Note W3 Total Cache doesn't seem to recognise this?):

opcache.enable=1
opcache.enable_cli=1

Next to configure Apache so all of the required modules are active, open the httpd.conf:

sudo ee /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.conf

Ensure mod_deflate and mod_expires are uncommented by removing # at the start of their corresponding lines (if present) so they look like the following:

LoadModule deflate_module libexec/apache24/mod_deflate.so
...
LoadModule expires_module libexec/apache24/mod_expires.so

For changes to take effect

Restart Apache after installation of PHP extensions and/or Apache modules with:

sudo apachectl graceful

If using PHP-FPM, restart PHP-FPM after installation of PHP extensions with:

sudo service php-fpm restart

References

• Installing/configuring Wordpress on a FAMP stack: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-wordpress-with-apache-on-freebsd-10-1
• Finding ports directory: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/ports-finding-applications.html