Wordpress (Bitnami+AWS)

Summary

This page provides instructions on setting up a Wordpress instance suitable for acting as a website (less like a blog, more like a site).

To jumpstart the process, I use the free Bitnami aws image.

Provision Instance

1. Launch Instance -> AWS Marketplace -> Bitnami Wordpress (HVM) <- allows you to use HVM provisioned instances like t2
2. Disk: 10g?

NOTE: Here's what I had for usage after uploading themes, playing with content and such:

bitnami@ip-172-31-41-143:~$ df -h /

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/xvda1      9.8G  2.2G  7.2G  23% /

Login as Admin

When the Bitnami instances launches, it automatically installs wordpress and creates an admin user. Instead of using a weak default password, a password is automatically generated at first launch. Follow the instructions here to obtain your password: https://wiki.bitnami.com/Amazon_cloud/Where_can_I_find_my_AWS_Marketplace_credentials%253f

1. EC2 Console -> Image -> Actions -> Instance Settings -> Get System Log
2. Look for "# Setting Bitnami application password to"
3. Login to yourhost/wp-admin with username: user, password: {see system log}

Create Your Admin User

1. Add User -> Role (Administrator)
2. Remove "user" user
   1. Attribute all content to your new user (as opposed to delete)

Select a Theme

Recommended: https://wordpress.org/themes/responsive

1. Go to https://wordpress.org/themes/
2. Download theme after finding something you like
3. Login to your wordpress site
4. Appearance -> Themes -> Add Theme -> Upload -> Select the theme zip you downloaded
5. Activate the theme

Customize the Theme

1. Appearance ->
   1. Customize -> Title & Tagline -> Set the title and tagline, then click Save
   2. Theme Options
      1. Home Page <- type your homepage text and content here
      2. Default Layout -> Full Width Page <- turns this more into a website, and less into a blog

Enable Google Analytics

1. In the analytics console, add your company/property to get a tracking ID
2. In WordPress, activate the plugin: Google Analytics by Yoast
3. Login
4. Set the tracking property to match the property you just created

Disable Comments

If you're using this as a static site, you probably want to disable all the comment dialogs.

1. Install the "Disable Comments" plugin
2. Go to plugins -> active -> Disable Comments -> Settings
3. Disable -> Everywhere

Edit the Homepage

Follow the instructions in the default widgets to update the three widgets in the default responsive layout

Add Pages

When you add pages, they will automatically appear in the navigation bar.

1. Pages -> Add Page
2. Set page order (in nav menu)
   1. Page Attributes -> Order

Software Subscriptions

You can manage your Amazon Marketplace subscriptions by clicking the "Your Software" link here:

https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace