This site is currently built using the WordPress image provided by MS Azure's OpenLiteSpeed.
Initially, I built the site using the cheap WordPress hosting provided by NameCheap. I was happy about the low price, but then I realized it was cheap and nasty (it seems WordPress sites require quite a bit of performance).)
While looking into popular services like Bluehost or domestic hosting companies that might seem advantageous in terms of speed, I realized that achieving a faster and more comfortable speed would require a significant cost. Therefore, I decided to build a WordPress site using the Azure credits I was receiving as an MVP benefit, which I had previously been neglecting.
First, the content shared today was created as a YouTube video and shared. Let's refer to it.
First, you need credits for the MS Azure cloud service, as it is a paid service.
https://portal.azure.com/
If anyone is trying this method after reading this post, fortunately, MS Azure provides $200 in credits that can be used for 12 months. Therefore, it would be good to create an account, receive the credits, and try it out.
It is said that you can use a B1S class VM for free for a year without using credits. It would be good to refer to this point as well.
When creating and using an initial trial account, you need to register a credit card that supports overseas payments. Therefore, if this part is burdensome, you may need to think about it a bit more. Testing showed that no actual payment is incurred.
After creating an account and logging into the Azure portal, the following screen appears.
Click Create a resource in the top left corner and search for "WordPress".
Then, various WordPress images available on the Azure Marketplace will appear. Here, we plan to use the OpenLiteSpeed image. While we haven't tested every other image, after testing a few, the OpenLiteSpeed image was the best.
The reason this image is the best is that it runs both the PHP server and the DB server on a single VM. Depending on the case, there are images where you create the hosting functionality and DB server functionality provided by Azure separately, but in that case, a lot of costs are incurred. However, due to the characteristics of WordPress using a PHP server, if the DB server is configured in a different physical environment, delays occur in data entry/exit, so even if optimized, the WordPress site runs very slowly, they say.
Similarly, the reason I gave up on configuring a WordPress App Service on Azure in the beginning was this content.
Two OpenLiteSpeed images appear in the search results; based on the search results, we will select the image that appears later. The reason is that the version appearing first in the search is installed with PHP 7.3.x, so it requires manual updates to 7.4 or higher for compatibility with the latest WordPress, which is inconvenient.
If the selection is made correctly as shown below, you can see the correct version of PHP displayed at the bottom. If everything looks good, click the "Create" button to proceed.
Set up the resource group and define the virtual machine name.
And you need to set the region (Region). Unfortunately, B1S available in the trial account cannot be used in the Korea region. You have to choose Asia-East, which is closer to Korea, or East-US, which can be considered the default. For this post, East-US was selected for testing.
Then, as shown below, you can select the free-eligible B1S as the "size" of the VM (virtual machine).
If you are not using the free trial and need to use a paid specification for reasons such as response speed, you simply need to select an appropriate region suitable for you.
Next, set the username and password for SSH access. Using an SSH public key is the default, but in my case, I created and used a username and password. (Using an SSH public key would be safer.)
Next, press the "Next" tab at the bottom to continue.
However, in the "Management" tab, you must check that "Auto Shutdown" is not activated as shown below. Otherwise, in order to save costs, the VM will automatically go to sleep, which will cause an unfortunate incident where the WordPress site cannot be accessed.
In the final review stage, after passing "validation", proceed with "create".
Once the deployment is in progress, if there are no major issues, you can automatically navigate to the deployment completion screen; however, if that is not the case, please check the current progress by looking at the notification icon in the top right corner (experienced users know that failures can occasionally occur).
Once the deployment is complete, you will see a deployment completion message as shown below. You can navigate to the VM we created by clicking the "Go to resource" button at the bottom.
Once you move to the VM, you can view the information on the Overview tab.
If you are familiar with Azure, this will be no problem, but if you are not familiar with Azure, it will look quite difficult. (Please create an easy version of Azure as well... MS guys, please...). What we need here is the part that says Public IP address. In this test post, it is 20.115.82.150.
When you hover your mouse cursor over it, a copy button will appear, so please click the button to copy, or drag or type to copy the address.
By entering the address into a web browser such as Chrome, you can see the following page.
OpenLiteSpeed 提供的镜像已正确安装。点击底部的 QuickStart Guide 可以查看 OpenLiteSpeed 提供的安装详情。
https://docs.litespeedtech.com/cloud/images/wordpress/#quick-start
Visiting the address below, you will see the Quick Start content as shown. It appears that Azure, as well as many other VM services, provides WordPress installation images. Therefore, even if it is not Azure, if you are using a cloud service, please try to utilize it.
For other tasks, you must proceed in an environment where shell scripts can be used, such as Terminal on macOS or CMD on Windows. This blog covers the process using a macOS environment.
Open the terminal and enter the following.
ssh id@server_ip_addressThen, after selecting whether to save the key value as shown below, enter the password value that was pre-configured when creating the VM in Azure. This will allow the login to proceed correctly as shown below.
Once you have successfully logged in, the screen for entering your user domain will appear as shown below. This is the best part of using the OpenLiteSpeed image to configure a WordPress site. By following this process, you can use the pre-made free Cert authentication, “Let’s encrypt certificate”, from OpenLiteSpeed to proceed with SSL security certification without purchasing SSL separately (immediately https).
When you connect a domain purchased from NameCheap, etc., an error will initially occur.
Why? Because you need to link the IP address of that VM to the DNS information on the domain purchase site. In my case, since I purchased the domain through NameCheap, I entered the IP information as an A record in the DNS settings as shown below.
Created an A record and entered *, www, and @ in the Host information, and entered the IP information in the Value field. Set TTL to Automatic.
If the process proceeds without any issues, you will be asked whether to proceed with SSL registration using the Let's Encrypt certificate. Of course, you will press YES.
Next, you will be prompted to enter the administrator email address. If there are no issues, you can proceed to the next step.
Finally, the Host settings created by OpenLiteSpeed will ask if you want to create a RewriteRule, i.e., a rule to connect via https even if accessed via http. Enter yes. Once you are familiar with OpenLiteSpeed, you can also change the rules from the console menu.
Finally, you will be asked whether to restart the web server and update the system. Pressing y will proceed, but depending on the VM specifications, it can take quite a while for the actual update to be applied. (In my case, it took over 10 minutes.) Have patience and wait until it is complete.
If you see the message below, you are done.
Now, enter the registered domain in your browser. This will display the screen for configuring WordPress. Enter the title, username, password, etc.
There it is~ My own WordPress site installation is complete.
While testing, I feel that even with the free b1s specifications available on Azure, there shouldn't be any major issues setting up a personal WordPress site. Of course, if you upload images and install various plugins, it might get quite slow, though...
OpenLiteSpeed also provides a variety of other settings. We will cover this part in the future.
This concludes today's post.