Background: I ran some virtual machines on cloud platforms in my last job for a few different projects. I decided hosting my own site seemed like a good idea as an area I could blog, sell myself and more importantly- test things out… Mostly simple webdev.
I used Azure, AWS and Google Cloud and the learning curve on Google was much, much lower as far as I was concerned so I stuck with it.
Step 1. I tried the process of building a LAMP stack with WordPress on the VM step by step but essentially I’m bad at following lots of instructions even though they are well documented.
Somehow I kept locking myself out of the required SQL database (or some similar other error). After a few attempts I accidentally came across a pre-configured WordPress VM which you can deploy in one click (pretty much).
It.was.easy. I used this excellent guide [link].
Step 2. This setup gets you up and running nice and quick. Simpletons like me can then use the GUI at http://example.com/wp-admin to make something fairly presentable in little time.
However; this is only a HTTP setup without SSL. For HTTPS I opted for Let’s Encrypt. I don’t have time for the ins and outs so I used this amazing guide [link].
And that’s about it… A blogable, presentable site in no time.
Lessons learned-
1. It seems hosting with Google may get expensive. I’m running a small VM and the site is not in constant use but I’ve had my first bill and it’s more than I was expecting. I’ll monitor this.
2. I made a tiny error that had me scratching my head for ages when setting up Let’s Encrypt. It’s very important to get the link to where the certificate is stored correct. I spelled my name wrong and Let’s Encrypt was trying to find a folder called DvidCopley.co.uk. that’s not how I spell David.