This tutorial will guide you through the process of using an Ansible playbook to install Nginx & WordPress on Ubuntu 23.04. We also provide a set of follow-up Ansible playbooks for optimizing your WordPress website. It’s a straightforward way to automate the task of getting your WordPress site up and running with Nginx.
Prerequisites:
- A server with Ansible installed
- A WordPress site that you’d like to optimize
Here are 5 Ansible scripts with explanations of their operations.
Ansible Playbook for Installing Nginx
Nginx is a web server that can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, and HTTP cache. It can help to optimize the performance of your WordPress site.
---
- name: Install Nginx
hosts: wordpress
become: true
tasks:
- name: Update repositories
apt:
update_cache: yes
- name: Install Nginx
apt:
name: nginx
state: latest
...
This script will update your package lists for upgrades and new package installations, then install the latest version of Nginx.
Ansible Playbook for Configuring Nginx for WordPress
This script will replace the default Nginx configuration file with a new file optimized for WordPress.
---
- name: Configure Nginx for WordPress
hosts: wordpress
become: true
tasks:
- name: Remove default nginx configuration
file:
path: /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
state: absent
- name: Add optimized nginx configuration
copy:
src: /path/to/your/nginx_wordpress_optimized.conf
dest: /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
owner: root
group: root
mode: '0644'
- name: Restart nginx to apply changes
service:
name: nginx
state: restarted
...
This script will remove the default Nginx configuration, add a new configuration optimized for WordPress, and then restart Nginx to apply the changes.
Ansible Playbook for Installing and Configuring WP Super Cache Plugin
WP Super Cache is a static caching plugin for WordPress. It generates static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress blog and serves those HTML files instead of processing the comparatively heavier and slower PHP scripts.
---
- name: Install and Configure WP Super Cache Plugin
hosts: wordpress
vars:
wp_cli: '/usr/local/bin/wp'
tasks:
- name: Install WP Super Cache Plugin
command: "{{ wp_cli }} plugin install wp-super-cache --activate"
- name: Enable Caching
command: "{{ wp_cli }} wp super-cache enable"
...
This script will install the WP Super Cache plugin and activate it using WP CLI (command line interface), a tool that allows you to manage your WordPress site from the command line. Then, it enables the caching functionality.
Ansible Playbook to Optimize MySQL Database
It’s important to keep your MySQL database optimized for the best WordPress performance. This script will use the mysqltuner script to optimize your MySQL database.
---
- name: Optimize MySQL Database
hosts: wordpress
become: true
tasks:
- name: Install MySQL Tuner
apt:
name: mysqltuner
state: latest
- name: Run MySQL Tuner
command: mysqltuner
...
This script installs the MySQL Tuner package and runs it to provide suggestions on how to optimize your MySQL database.
Ansible Playbook for Configuring a CDN with W3 Total Cache
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) reduces the load on your server and can make your site load faster. W3 Total Cache is a WordPress plugin that helps with this. This script assumes you have an account with a CDN provider.
---
- name: Setup a CDN with W3 Total Cache
hosts: wordpress
vars:
wp_cli: '/usr/local/bin/wp'
tasks:
- name: Install W3 Total Cache Plugin
command: "{{ wp_cli }} plugin install w3-total-cache --activate"
- name: Enable CDN and add CDN details
command: "{{ wp_cli }} w3-total-cache cdn_enabled true --cdn-engine='generic' --cdn-url='your-cdn-url' --cdn-ssl='auto'"
...
This script will install and activate the W3 Total Cache plugin using WP CLI. Then, it enables the CDN functionality and configures the CDN settings with your CDN details.
This tutorial only scratches the surface of what you can achieve with Ansible for WordPress optimization. However, these scripts provide a strong starting point for a more robust and responsive WordPress site. Remember to replace placeholders with your actual paths or details before running these scripts.
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