WordPress is the most used CMS in the world. It powers more than 30% of the web. It is a great solution for most online businesses. If you decide to use WordPress as your CMS and Google Cloud as your hosting platform, this tutorial is for you. This tutorial will show you how to install WordPress on Google Compute Engine VM Instance with SSL.
Installation process of WordPress is fairly easy on shared hosting platforms. But most WordPress sites ourgrow shared hosting quickly. I’ve already posted instructions to install WordPress on VPS with Virtualmin & nginx. But things are little different for Google Cloud users due to Google Cloud infrastructure. This page will list necessary steps to get your WordPress up and running on Google Compute Engine VM Instance with Virtualmin control panel.
We’ll be building our web server for WordPress on Google Cloud with Virtualmin v7.1 GPL control panel. It’s a free control panel and packs powerful features to manage a web server. Additionally, we’ll be installing Nginx v1.22, PHP v8.0 and MySQL v8. Complete below steps to install WordPress on Google Compute Engine VM Instance with SSL.
Not a tech guy? Rather have a freelancer install WordPress on Google Cloud for you?Hire me and have your WordPress ready within 24 hours!
Get WordPress Installed
Step #1 – Create a Google Cloud VM instance for WordPress and install Virtualmin
This step will get your Google Cloud VM instance ready for WordPress. We’ll create a VM instance with Ubuntu 20.04 as operating system and install Virtualmin. This is the most time-consuming part of the WordPress installation process. But my step by step instructions will make it easy to setup your Google Cloud VM instance with Virtualmin even if you’re totally new to GCP and VPS.
Tutorial: Install Virtualmin on Google Cloud VM instance
Step #2 – Add your WordPress domain to Virtualmin on Google Cloud
Your GCE VM instance is ready to host WordPress or any other website when you complete above steps. It’s now time to add your WordPress domain to Virtualmin. Virtualmin has something called Virtual Servers for this purpose. You need to create a top-level server within Virtualmin for each of your domains. Don’t forget to point your WordPress domain to GCE VM instance with an A record.
Tutorial: Add WordPress domain to Virtualmin
Step #4 – Enable SSL (https) for WordPress on Google Cloud
Virtualmin offers an option to request a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for your WordPress domain. Now that you have Virtualmin installed and WordPress domain added to your GCE VM instance, it is the perfect time to enable Let’s Encrypt SSL for WordPress. Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates are issued free of charge and Virtualmin is capable of auto renewing them.
Tutorial: Install Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate for WordPress with Virtualmin
Step #5 – Obtain WordPress MySQL database credentials from Virtualmin on Google Cloud
Virtualmin automatically creates a MySQL database for your WordPress when you add your domain with above instructions. But it won’t display login credentials on-screen. You’ll need this information to complete the WordPress installation on Google Cloud. Fortunately you can easily get MySQL credentials from Virtualmin.
Tutorial: Obtain WordPress MySQL credentials from Virtualmin
Step #6 – Install WordPress on Google Cloud with Virtualmin
You have everything setup for WordPress now. We took care of every little configuration that is required to run a perfect web server on Google Cloud. This step is to actually install WordPress on Google Compute Engine VM instance. Complete the installation with below tutorial. You can ignore the prerequisites section.
Tutorial : Install WordPress with Virtualmin
Step #7 – Redirect http to https with Virtualmin on Google Cloud
Your WordPress should be fully functional at this point. We will wrap things up by setting up 301 redirects from http to https. This step increases WordPress security a bit. This will make sure nobody can spying on your WordPress traffic.
Tutorial : 301 Redirects from http to https with Virtualmin
That’s it. If you’ve followed all the steps above, you now have a superfast WordPress installation on Google Could with Virtualmin control panel and LEMP stack. Head over to our sysadmin support forum to get help if you run into errors.
