INSTALL VARNISH FOR WORDPRESS IN DIGITAL OCEAN / UBUNTU 16.04.2 x64

Frustration with old tutorial, and not working documentation? try this! In this tutorial we will install latest Wordpress with server spec:

• PHP 7.0
• Mysql
• Varnish
• NginX

Requirement:

• Fresh droplet (Ubuntu 16.04.2 x64)

If you dont know what are you gonna do, simply drop an email to rivieravinesa@gmail.com, you can hire me to setup your server with varnish cache.

STEP 1

Install Nginx, php, Mysql, and Varnish

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install -y nginx mysql-server php php-fpm php-mysql php-curl php7.0-xml varnish

when it ask for the mysql root password, you can type new password.

STEP 2

Backup default virtualhost file

mv /etc/nginx/sites-available/default /etc/nginx/sites-available/default_org

create new default virtualhost file:

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

copy and paste this, don't forget to change yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com with your domain.

server {
        listen 127.0.0.1:8080 default_server;
        listen [::]:8080 default_server;
         root /var/www/html/wordpress;
        index index.php index.html index.htm;
        server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;
        location / {
                        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
                }

         location ~ \.php$ {
                                fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
                                fastcgi_index index.php;
                                fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
                                fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
                                include fastcgi_params;
                            }

}

Restart NginX server

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Check the NginX is listening on port 8080

netstat -ntulp

Output: tcp - 0 - 0 127.0.0.1:8080 - 0.0.0.0:* - LISTEN - nginx -g daemo

STEP 3

Setting Varnish

nano /etc/default/varnish

Change -a:6081 to -a:80 on Alternative 2, like this:

DAEMON_OPTS="-a :80 \
             -T localhost:6082 \
             -f /etc/varnish/default.vcl \
             -S /etc/varnish/secret \
             -s malloc,256m"

Change -a:6081 to -a:80 in this file too

nano /lib/systemd/system/varnish.service 

like this

[Unit]
Description=Varnish HTTP accelerator
Documentation=https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/4.1/ man:varnishd

[Service]
Type=simple
LimitNOFILE=131072
LimitMEMLOCK=82000
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/varnishd -j unix,user=vcache -F -a :80 -T localhost:6082 -f /etc/varnish/default.vcl -S /etc/varnish/secret -s malloc,256m
ExecReload=/usr/share/varnish/reload-vcl
ProtectSystem=full
ProtectHome=true
PrivateTmp=true
PrivateDevices=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Restart nginx, varnish server, and reload daemon.

sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart
systemctl daemon-reload
sudo /etc/init.d/varnish restart

check varnish listening port 80

netstat -ntulp

Output: tcp - 0 - 0 0.0.0.0:80 - 0.0.0.0:* - LISTEN - 1510/varnishd

Nginx must listen port 127.0.0.1:8080 and varnish must port 0.0.0.0:80

STEP 4

Download and install Wordpress

wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
sudo tar -xvf latest.tar.gz -C /var/www/html/

Change permission of the Wordpress

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/wordpress
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/wordpress

STEP 5

Create database ex. "wordpress_db"

mysql -u root -p'mysql_root_password' -e "CREATE DATABASE wordpress_db"

Create user ex. "wpuser"

mysql -u root -p'mysql_root_password' -e "CREATE USER wpuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';"

add user to database

mysql -u root -p'mysql_root_password' -e "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress_db.* TO wpuser@localhost;"

flush previleges

mysql -u root -p'mysql_root_password' -e "FLUSH PRIVILEGES;"

STEP 6

If there is no error, you can access your website proxified by Varnish.

• Open your domain.com and run wordpress installation wizard.
• Install plugins for purge varnish cache (choose one: Varnish HTTP Purge / W3 Total Cache / WPBase Cache)

STEP 7

Currently varnish will cache all pages, including wp-admin. To prevent this, we can configuring Varnish Default Configuration.

Backup your default.vcl

mv /etc/varnish/default.vcl /etc/varnish/default_bak.vcl

Create new Default Configuration

nano /etc/varnish/default.vcl

and copy paste this configuration: https://github.com/erickvasilev/wordpress_varnish/blob/master/default.vcl

restart to affect changes

sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart
systemctl daemon-reload
sudo /etc/init.d/varnish restart

If your site is not working properly after this change, that's mean this default.vcl configuration is not suitable for your website, you may modified by yourself.