How to Install WordPress with WSL on Windows 11

Install Windows Subsystem for Linux in 🪟 Windows 11

Installing the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on Windows 11 lets you run Linux tools directly on your PC. First, open Command Prompt as an administrator by searching for it in the Start menu and right-clicking to select ‘Run as administrator’. Then, type the command ‘wsl –install’ and press Enter to begin the installation.

Next, right-click the Command Prompt app and choose to Run as administrator.

When the console opens, run the commands below to install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL):

wsl --install

Wait for WSL to be installed.

After installing, you should get a success message similar to the lines below:

Installing: Virtual Machine Platform
Virtual Machine Platform has been installed.
Installing: Windows Subsystem for Linux
Windows Subsystem for Linux has been installed.
Downloading: WSL Kernel
Installing: WSL Kernel
WSL Kernel has been installed.
Downloading: GUI App Support
Installing: GUI App Support
GUI App Support has been installed.
Downloading: Ubuntu
The requested operation is successful. Changes will not be effective until the system is rebooted.

Restart your computer.

WSL should be installed and ready to use. When you want to update, simply run the commands below:

wsl --update

Install Specific Linux distro on 🪟 Windows 11

Now that WSL is installed, you can install your own Linux distro. To list the available distributions to install, simply run the commands below:

wsl --list --online

You should then see all available distributions that can be installed on WSL.

NAME            FRIENDLY NAME
Ubuntu          Ubuntu
Debian          Debian GNU/Linux
kali-linux      Kali Linux Rolling
openSUSE-42     openSUSE Leap 42
SLES-12         SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v12
Ubuntu-16.04    Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Ubuntu-18.04    Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Ubuntu-20.04    Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

To install a Linux distribution from the list above, simply run the commands below using the distribution name. For example, to install Ubuntu 20.04, run the commands below:

wsl --install -d ubuntu-20.04

You should then get a message that the distribution is installed.

Downloading: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Installing: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS has been installed.
Launching Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

After installing, you should get a Ubuntu command console with setup details.

Installing, this may take a few minutes.
Please create a default UNIX user account. The username does not need to match your Windows username.
For more information visit: https://aka.ms/wslusers
Enter new UNIX username: Richard
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Installation successful!
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

Welcome to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.4.0-22000-Microsoft x86_64)

Some troubleshooting commands to run when you run into issues.

wsl --set-default-version 1
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto start

Now that Ubuntu Linux is installed and ready, continue below to install the LEMP server to run WordPress. First, install the Nginx HTTP Server.

Install Nginx HTTP Server

WordPress needs a web server to work, and Nginx is a popular choice for this. To install Nginx on your Ubuntu system within WSL, open your terminal and run the commands ‘sudo apt update’ followed by ‘sudo apt install nginx’. This sets up the web server that will host your WordPress site.

To install Nginx on Ubuntu, run the commands below:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop and start Nginx services.

sudo service nginx stop
sudo service nginx start

To test whether Nginx is installed and functioning, open your web browser and browse to the server’s IP address or hostname.

http://localhost

If you see the above page in your browser, Nginx works as expected.

Install MariaDB Server

WordPress stores all your website’s content, like posts and pages, in a database, and MariaDB is a great open-source option. To install the MariaDB server on Ubuntu, simply run the commands ‘sudo apt install mariadb-server maria’ in your terminal. This sets up the database system needed for WordPress.

A truly open-source database server that you can use with WordPress is the MariaDB database server. It is fast and secure and is the default server for almost all Linux servers.

To install MariaDB, run the commands below:

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can stop and start the service and enable it to start when the server boots.

sudo service mysql stop
sudo service mysql start

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

• Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
• Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
• New password: Enter password
• Re-enter new password: Repeat password
• Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
• Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
• Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]:  Y
• Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]:  Y

To verify and validate that MariaDB is installed and working, log in to the database console using the commands below:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Type the root password when prompted.

The server was successfully installed if you see a similar screen.

Install PHP and Related Modules

Since WordPress is built using PHP, you need to install PHP and specific modules for it to function correctly. Run the command ‘sudo apt install php-fpm php-common php-mysql php-gmp php-curl php-intl php-mbstring php-xmlrpc php-gd php-xml php-cli php-zip’ in your terminal to get everything WordPress needs.

sudo apt install php-fpm php-common php-mysql php-gmp php-curl php-intl php-mbstring php-xmlrpc php-gd php-xml php-cli php-zip

After installing PHP, configure some basic settings required for WordPress to function properly.

sudo nano /etc/php/7.4/fpm/php.ini

Below are good settings to configure for most WordPress websites.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

That should get PHP 7.4 installed with some basic settings to allow WordPress to function.

After setting up PHP, the command below can be used to stop and start PHP7.4 services.

sudo service php7.4-fpm stop
sudo service php7.4-fpm start

Create WordPress Database

With your servers ready, it’s time to create the database WordPress will use to store your site’s information. First, log into the MariaDB console by running ‘sudo mysql -u root -p’ in your terminal. Once logged in, create a new database named ‘wpdb’ with the command ‘CREATE DATABASE wpdb;’ and then create a user for it.

Login to the MariaDB database console using the commands below:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then, create a database called wpdb

CREATE DATABASE wpdb;

Next, create a database user called wpdbuser and set a password

CREATE USER 'wpdbuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then, grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON wpdb.* TO 'wpdbuser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download WordPress

Now you can download the latest version of WordPress and place it where your web server can access it. Navigate to the temporary directory by typing ‘cd /tmp’, then download the WordPress files using ‘wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz’. Extract the files with ‘tar -xvzf latest.tar.gz’ and move them to the web server’s directory using ‘sudo mv wordpress /var/www/wordpress’.

cd /tmp
wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xvzf latest.tar.gz
sudo mv wordpress /var/www/wordpress

Then, run the command below to allow the www-data user to own the WordPress directory.

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

Configure Nginx VirtualHost

To make your WordPress site accessible, you need to configure Nginx to handle requests for it by setting up a VirtualHost file. Create a new configuration file named ‘wordpress’ in the ‘/etc/nginx/sites-available/’ directory by running ‘sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress’. Inside this file, you’ll add the specific settings for your WordPress site.

Run the commands below to create a new VirtualHost file called WordPress in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress

Below is a very good configuration setting for most WordPress sites on the Nginx server. This configuration should work great.

Copy the content below and save it into the file created above.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/wordpress;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

    client_max_body_size 100M;
    autoindex off;
    
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }

    location ~ .php$ {
         include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
         fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
         include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

After saving the file above, run the commands below to enable the new site, then restart the Nginx server.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo service nginx restart

At this stage, WordPress is ready and can be launched by going to the server’s IP or hostname.

http://example.com

That should bring up the WordPress setup wizard.

Type in the database connection and continue.

Create a WordPress admin account and password, then click Install WordPress.

Log in with the account above, and you’re done.

That’s it!

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to install WSL 2 on Windows 11, install Ubuntu, and run WordPress. If you find any error, please report it in the comment form below.