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Install WordPress Pete on Amazon Web Services (Production)

1 — Provision the server

  1. Go to the AWS Management Console and log in with your AWS account.
  2. In the search bar, type EC2 and click EC2 to open the dashboard.
  3. Click Launch Instance.
  4. Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI):
    • Select Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS (HVM), 64-bit (x86).
  5. Choose an instance type:
    • For WordPress Pete in production, select at least:
    • Instance type: t3.xlarge (4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM)
    • Storage: 160 GB gp3 SSD
  6. Configure key pair (login):
    • Choose Create a new key pair if you don’t have one.
    • Download the .pem file and keep it safe.
    • This will be used to connect via SSH.
  7. Configure network settings:
    • Allow SSH (port 22) from your IP.
    • Allow HTTP (port 80) and HTTPS (port 443) from anywhere.
  8. Launch the instance.
    • Click Launch Instance and wait until it finishes provisioning.
  9. Copy the public IPv4 address of your instance from the EC2 dashboard.
  10. Connect via SSH from your terminal:
ssh -i /path/to/your-key.pem ubuntu@your_ec2_public_ip

2 — Connect over SSH

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

3 — Run the Pete installer

ssh root@<PUBLIC_SERVER_IP>

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

curl -o pete_installer.sh -L https://deploypete.com/pete_installer.sh && chmod 755 pete_installer.sh && sudo ./pete_installer.sh

4. Launch Pete in your browser

When the script completes, simply visit:

http://<YOUR_SERVER_IP>

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)<br />
sudo cat /opt/wordpress-pete/.env

Switching WordPress Pete to a Different PHP Version — Zero Downtime

1. Edit the version flag

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.

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 /admin/phpinfo 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/wordpress-pete Browse to the project dir
Start or re-build the stack

cd /opt/wordpress-pete

docker compose pull
docker compose build
docker compose up -d
 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.
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).
Where Apache keeps the website files /var/www/html Pete files path:
/var/www/html/Pete
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.