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General Installation Instructions

1 — Provision the server

  • Spin up a VM, VPS, or dedicated host on your preferred cloud provider.

  • Minimum spec: 8 GB RAM (more is always better).

  • Image: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS × 64-bit.

2 — Connect over SSH

From your local terminal, replace <PUBLIC_SERVER_IP> with the server’s address and connect as root:

ssh root@<PUBLIC_SERVER_IP>

3 — Run the Pete installer

Paste the one-liner below into the SSH session; it downloads, makes executable, and launches the installer:

curl -o pete11_installer.sh -L https://wordpresspete.com/pete11_installer.sh \
  && chmod 755 pete11_installer.sh \
  && sudo ./pete11_installer.sh

4. Launch Pete in your browser

When the script completes, simply visit:

http://<YOUR_SERVER_IP>

You’ll see the WordPress Pete dashboard ready for first-time setup.

5. (Optional — Recommended) Harden SSH & Firewall

Still connected as root, tighten basic security in one sweep

# ── Change SSH to a non-standard port (2222) ──
sed -i 's/^#\?Port .*/Port 2222/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
systemctl restart ssh

# ── Refresh UFW rules ──
# drop old SSH port
ufw delete limit 22/tcp    
# rate-limited new SSH port
ufw limit 2222/tcp      
# Allow HTTP
ufw allow 80/tcp      
# Allow HTTPS
ufw allow 443/tcp              
ufw --force enable

Next time you connect:

ssh -p 2222 root@<YOUR_SERVER_IP>

System Passwords & Environment Variables

All secrets generated during installation—database credentials, API keys, reload tokens, etc.—live in /opt/wordpress-pete/.env

# View the file (read-only)
sudo cat /opt/wordpress-pete/.env

Keep it safe

  • This file is the single source of truth for every password and token in your stack—treat it like a vault key.

  • Restrict access: chmod 600 /opt/wordpress-pete/.env (owner-read/write only).

  • Never commit it to version control or share it in support tickets.

Switching WordPress Pete to a Different PHP Version — Zero Downtime

1. Edit the version flag

sudo vim /opt/wordpress-pete/.env

Find PHP_VERSION= and set it to 8.1, 8.2, or 8.3. Save & exit.

2. Re-build the PHP image

docker compose build --no-cache php

3. Hot-swap the container

Launch the freshly built PHP container (no other services are touched)

docker compose up -d php

4. Verify

Sign back in to WordPress Pete and visit /phpinfo_panel to confirm the new PHP version is active.

Docker Compose Cheat-Sheet

Task Command (inside your project folder) When / Why you use it
WordPress Pete Docker project route cd /opt/wp-pete-docker Browse to the project dir
Start or re-build the stack cd /opt/wp-pete-docker && docker compose up --build Builds images if they changed and launches every service in the foreground. Hit Ctrl +C to stop.
Open a shell in a container

docker compose exec php bash

docker compose exec apache bash

docker compose exec mysql bash

 Inspect logs, run WP-CLI / Artisan, edit files quickly.
Re-build after editing a Dockerfile docker compose build --no-cache apache
docker compose build --no-cache php
docker compose build --no-cache mysql		 Forces a clean image rebuild for wordpress, apache, or php after you tweak their Dockerfile.
Reset phpMyAdmin bash docker compose down docker volume rm wp-pete-docker_pma_data Drops the pma_data volume so phpMyAdmin is regenerated on next up.
Delete all volumes (nuke-and-pave) bash docker compose down -v Stops containers and removes every named/anonymous volume—irreversible.
Restart Apache inside its container bash docker compose exec apache bash -c "apache2ctl restart" Applies v-host changes without recreating the whole stack.
Where Apache keeps v-hosts /etc/apache2/sites-available – staging configs /etc/apache2/sites-enabled – live symlinks Edit a file in sites-available, then run apache2ctl graceful (from inside the container).
Enter MySQL as root docker compose exec mysql -u root -p (password = MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD in .env) Handy for one-off queries or importing .sql dumps.
Trigger graceful Apache reload from PHP / CI bash curl -sf -H "X-Reload-Secret: $APACHE_RELOAD_SECRET" http://apache/internal-reload Lets a deploy script tell Apache to reload configs without restarting the container.