How to create a WordPress blog using AWS Lightsail? – Tutorial

Hey, it’s me again.
I wanted to write something technical today, and I figured out why not tell you how I created the blog.

Creating the server

I decided to use Amazon Web Services as my VPS provider.
Using AWS Lightsail you have a free month trial and the small instance which is really fine for a blog costs only US$ 3.50 a month for 1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM and 20 GB SSD Storage.

1. Log in to AWS Lightsail and create an account if you don’t have one. (Requires credit card)
2. Once you have created your account and are logged in to lightsail is time for creating the instance. Click create instance.
   
3. Then we will have to select the settings of the VM we are creating:
   
   Select Linux/Unix as the platform and WordPress as the App+OS
4. After that we will have to select the Instance Plan
   
   By default there is a 512 MB RAM, 1 vCPU and 20GB SSD VM selected, we will keep that option for this tutorial.
5. We will set an instance name and create the instance.
   In this case I have named my instance TestInstance
   
6. Then we will create a Public IP for the server.
   We will click Networking and click create Static IP.
   
7. Then we will need to attach the Static IP to an instance.
   As you can see I have attached TestInstance and named the Static IP test-stip2.
   Then I have clicked create.
   
8. We have successfully created our WordPress server.
   
   Now we’ll have to make some extra configurations. But before that, let’s make sure the instance is working.
9. Check the instance is working:
   On your preferred browser type https://$INSTANCEIPADDRESS/wp-admin
   In my case https://35.171.114.83/wp-admin
   
   
   

Getting WordPress password

To get the password that will grant us access to WordPress we will need to do the following:

1. Launch VM console
   
2. Once the console is open you will need to run this command:
   $HOME/bitnami_application_password
3. You might get the following error:
   -bash: /home/bitnami/bitnami_application_password: Permission denied
   
   
4. In that case what we will need to do is:
   chmod +755 bitnami_application_password
   We will still get an error, but the error code will have the password output.
   
   Make sure to copy that password somewhere safe.
5. Check if the password works
   
6. If the password works you will be redirected to the WordPress Admin dashboard.
   
   
   
   
   

Congratulations, you have a working wordpress site! Configure it as you like.

Now we have to configure name resolution for the public, I’ll show you how to here.