Setting Up A WordPress Install Server Side

The following guide will help you setup WordPress on a server.

With SSH Access

If there is SSH access to the server, this is the easiest and most efficient way to setup WordPress.

Login via ssh, and in the root folder for the server (usually public_html but can vary from server to server) download the latest WordPress tar.

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Un-tar the file.

tar xfz latest.tar.gz

This will create a folder called wordpress on the server. We can now move those files into our root directory.

mv wordpress/* .

Remove the tar and empty wordpress folder.

rm -Rf wordpress latest.tar.gz

With FTP/SFTP

This is the least efficient way to install WordPress on a server, but sometimes it is our only option.

Locally, download and un-tar WordPress on your machine.

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Un-tar the file.

tar xfz latest.tar.gz

Login to the site's FTP/SFTP and upload all the files found locally in wordpress/

Setting Up The Database

This can vary based on server, but should be similar across the board.

Login to the server cPanel, for example https://factor1.me/cpanel, then click MySQL Database Wizard and follow the steps to create a new Database and User. Be sure to copy the password to a safe location temporarily. There's no need to save it in 1Password. When asked for what privileges to the database, select ALL.

Next, navigate to the WordPress install and finish the setup using the database and user you just created. Generally, the database host is localhost but can vary depending on servers.