Create a WordPress site

Article
08/17/2022
3 minutes to read

WordPress is an open source content management system (CMS) that can be used to create websites, blogs, and other applications. Over 40% of the web uses WordPress from blogs to major news websites.

In this quickstart, you'll learn how to create and deploy your first WordPress site to Azure App Service on Linux using the WordPress on the Azure Marketplace. It uses the Basic tier and incurs a cost for your Azure subscription. The WordPress installation comes with pre-installed plugins for performance improvements, W3TC for caching and Smush for image compression.

To complete this quickstart, you need an Azure account with an active subscription. Create an account for free.

Important

After November 28, 2022, PHP will only be supported on App Service on Linux..
The MySQL Flexible Server is created behind a private Virtual Network and can't be accessed directly. To access the database, use phpMyAdmin that's deployed with the WordPress site. It can be found at the URL : https://<sitename>.azurewebsites.net/phpmyadmin

If you have feedback to improve this WordPress offering on App Service, submit your ideas at Web Apps Community.

Create WordPress site using Azure portal

To start creating the WordPress site, browse to https://ms.portal.azure.com/#create/WordPress.WordPress.
In the Basics tab, under Project details, make sure the correct subscription is selected and then choose to Create new resource group. Type myResourceGroup for the name and select a Region you want to serve your app from.
Under Instance details, type a globally unique name for your web app and choose Linux for Operating System. Select Basic for Hosting plan. See the table below for app and database SKUs for given hosting plans. You can view hosting plans details in the announcement. For pricing, visit App Service pricing and Azure Database for MySQL pricing.
Under WordPress Settings, type an Admin Email, Admin Username, and Admin Password. The Admin Email here is used for WordPress administrative sign-in only.
Select the Advanced tab. Under Additional Settings choose your preferred Site Language and Content Distribution. If you're unfamiliar with a Content Delivery Network or Blob Storage, select Disabled. For more details on the Content Distribution options, see WordPress on App Service.
Select the Review + create tab. After validation runs, select the Create button at the bottom of the page to create the WordPress site.
Browse to your site URL and verify the app is running properly. The site may take a few minutes to load. If you receive an error, allow a few more minutes then refresh the browser.
To access the WordPress Admin page, browse to /wp-admin and use the credentials you created in the WordPress settings step.

Clean up resources

When no longer needed, you can delete the resource group, App service, and all related resources.

From your App Service overview page, click the resource group you created in the Create WordPress site using Azure portal step.
From the resource group page, select Delete resource group. Confirm the name of the resource group to finish deleting the resources.

Change MySQL password

The WordPress configuration is modified to use Application Settings to connect to the MySQL database. To change the MySQL database password, see update admin password. Whenever the MySQL database credentials are changed, the Application Settings also need to be updated. The Application Settings for MySQL database begin with the DATABASE_ prefix. For more information on updating MySQL passwords, see WordPress on App Service.

Change WordPress admin password

The Application Settings for WordPress admin credentials are only for deployment purposes. Modifying these values has no effect on the WordPress installation. To change the WordPress admin password, see resetting your password. The Application Settings for WordPress admin credentials begin with the WORDPRESS_ADMIN_ prefix. For more information on updating the WordPress admin password, see WordPress on App Service.

Next steps

Congratulations, you've successfully completed this quickstart!

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