Wordpress

The world's most used CMS for websites and blogs

WordPress on Cubeship

WordPress is the open-source publishing platform behind a large share of the web: a site or a blog, extended with themes and plugins.

This template installs it on a Cubeship instance with the managed MySQL it needs, and a volume for everything it keeps in files.

What it creates

wordpress — WordPress, from wordpress:7.1.0-php8.3-apache, answering on the domain you choose, with a volume at /var/www/html: WordPress itself, wp-config.php with the site's secret keys, and wp-content — plugins, themes and uploads.
wordpress-db — a managed MySQL 8.4 database, attached to the app. Posts, pages, users, comments and settings are in it.

It needs Cubeship 0.7.0 or newer.

What you are asked

Input	What to give
Where the site answers	A domain you control, pointed at your instance.

The secret keys and salts need no answer: the image writes random ones into wp-config.php on the first start, and the volume keeps them.

After installing

Open the domain straight away. WordPress has no default account: the first person to open it runs the install wizard and creates the admin. Until you do, that is anyone who finds the domain.
Install an SMTP plugin, such as WP Mail SMTP, and give it your mail provider's settings. The image cannot send mail on its own, so password resets and notifications go nowhere until you do.

The site's address is fixed to https://<your domain> by WORDPRESS_CONFIG_EXTRA on the wordpress app, which is why WordPress Address and Site Address are greyed out under Settings → General. Change the variable if the domain changes, and redeploy.

Updating WordPress

Update WordPress, plugins and themes from its own dashboard. The image copies WordPress into the volume only when the volume is empty, so a newer tag changes PHP and Apache, not the WordPress the site runs.

Uploads larger than 2 MB

PHP's default limit is 2 MB per file. Raise it with .htaccess in the volume, over SSH on the machine the app runs on, since Cubeship has no console into an app:

docker exec $(docker ps -qf name=cubeship-wordpress-production-wordpress) \
  sh -c 'printf "php_value upload_max_filesize 64M\nphp_value post_max_size 64M\n" >> .htaccess'

It applies from the next request. WordPress only rewrites the lines between its own # BEGIN WordPress and # END WordPress markers, so these stay.

Scheduled tasks

WP-Cron runs on page views: WordPress calls its own wp-cron.php over the domain, so there is nothing to schedule and no DISABLE_WP_CRON to set. On a site with few visitors, scheduled posts go out at the next visit rather than on the minute.

The volume

The app runs as one copy on the machine its volume is on, and a deploy stops it for a few seconds. Back up both the volume, for plugins, themes and uploads, and the database, for everything else: one without the other is a site with broken images or no posts.

Resources

The app is limited to 1 CPU and 1 GiB of memory. Raise limits in template.yaml for a busy site.

What this creates

wordpress

wordpress:7.1.0-php8.3-apache

wordpress-db

MySQL 8.4

/var/www/html

Volume of wordpress

template.yaml

# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://cubeship.dev/schema/template/v1.json
version: 1
# The first release that keeps a volume's data across deploys.
minCubeship: "0.7.0"
project: wordpress

inputs:
  - key: domain
    type: domain
    label: Where the site answers

databases:
  - key: db
    name: wordpress-db
    # WordPress asks for MySQL 8.0 or newer, and its tests run on 8.4.
    engine: mysql
    version: "8.4"
    database: wordpress

apps:
  - key: web
    name: wordpress
    image: wordpress
    tag: "7.1.0-php8.3-apache"
    port: 80
    # A file Apache serves without WordPress: / redirects, to the install
    # wizard before setup and to https:// after, and the probe is plain HTTP.
    health: /wp-includes/images/blank.gif
    domains:
      - host: ${input.domain}
    attach:
      - database: db
    volumes:
      - path: /var/www/html
    limits: { cpu: 1, memory: 1Gi }
    env:
      # WordPress reads its connection piece by piece, not from DATABASE_URL.
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: ${db.db.host}:${db.db.port}
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: ${db.db.user}
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: ${db.db.password}
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: ${db.db.name}
      # The image already treats X-Forwarded-Proto: https as HTTPS. This pins
      # the address, so a first visit over http:// cannot store the wrong one.
      WORDPRESS_CONFIG_EXTRA: "define('WP_HOME', 'https://${input.domain}'); define('WP_SITEURL', 'https://${input.domain}');"