High Availability WordPress Hosting for Debian 7 and Ubuntu 14.04

This guide configures a high availability WordPress site with a two-Linode cluster, using MySQL Master-Master replication and a Linode NodeBalancer front-end.

Prerequisites

This guide is written for Debian 7 or Ubuntu 14.04. To complete this guide, ensure that there are two Linodes and a NodeBalancer present on your account. Both Linodes need a Private IP address. Also ensure that both of your Linodes have been configured with SSH keys, and place the opposing Linode’s SSH key in the other’s /.ssh/authorized_keys file.

Note

This guide is written for a non-root user. Commands that require elevated privileges are prefixed with sudo. If you’re not familiar with the sudo command, you can check our Users and Groups guide.

Install Required Software Packages

Use the following commands to install Apache, PHP, and MySQL on each of the Linodes:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 php5-mysql mysql-server mysql-client

Edit MySQL’s Configuration to Set Up Master-Master Replication

1. Edit the /etc/mysql/my.cnf file on each of the Linodes. Add or modify the following values:

   Server 1:

   File: /etc/mysql/my.cnf

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   server_id = 1 log_bin = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log log_bin_index = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log.index relay_log = /var/log/mysql/mysql-relay-bin relay_log_index = /var/log/mysql/mysql-relay-bin.index expire_logs_days = 10 max_binlog_size = 100M log_slave_updates = 1 auto-increment-increment = 2 auto-increment-offset = 1

   Server 2:

   File: /etc/mysql/my.cnf

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   server_id = 2 log_bin = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log log_bin_index = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log.index relay_log = /var/log/mysql/mysql-relay-bin relay_log_index = /var/log/mysql/mysql-relay-bin.index expire_logs_days = 10 max_binlog_size = 100M log_slave_updates = 1 auto-increment-increment = 2 auto-increment-offset = 2

2. For each of the Linodes, edit the bind-address configuration in order to use the private IP addresses:

   File: /etc/mysql/my.cnf

   1	bind-address = x.x.x.x

3. Once completed, restart the MySQL application:

   sudo service mysql restart
   

Create Replication Users

1. Log in to MySQL on each of the Linodes:

   mysql -u root -p
   

2. Configure the replication users on each Linode. Replace x.x.x.x with the private IP address of the opposing Linode and password with a strong password:

   GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON *.* TO 'replication'@'x.x.x.x' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
   

3. Back in the terminal, run the following command to test the configuration. Use the private IP address of the opposing Linode:

   mysql -ureplication -p -h x.x.x.x -P 3306
   

   This command should connect you to the remote server’s MySQL instance.

Configure Database Replication

1. While logged into MySQL on Server 1, query the master status:

   SHOW MASTER STATUS;
   

   Note the file and position values that are displayed:

   mysql> SHOW MASTER STATUS;
   +------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
   | File             | Position | Binlog_Do_DB | Binlog_Ignore_DB |
   +------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
   | mysql-bin.000001 |      277 |              |                  |
   +------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
   1 row in set (0.00 sec)
   

2. On Server 2, at the MySQL prompt, set up the slave functionality for that database. Replace x.x.x.x with the private IP from the first server. Also replace the values for master_log_file and master_log_pos with the values from the previous step:

   SLAVE STOP;
   CHANGE MASTER TO master_host='x.x.x.x', master_port=3306, master_user='replication', master_password='password', master_log_file='mysql-bin.000001', master_log_pos=277;
   SLAVE START;
   

3. On Server 2, query the master status. Note the file and position values:

   SHOW MASTER STATUS;
   

4. Set the slave database status on Server 1, replacing the same values swapped in step 2 with those from the Server 2:

   SLAVE STOP;
   CHANGE MASTER TO master_host='x.x.x.x', master_port=3306, master_user='replication', master_password='password', master_log_file='mysql-bin.000001', master_log_pos=277;
   SLAVE START;
   

5. Exit MySQL on both of your Linodes:

   exit
   

Configure Apache

The steps in this section will need to be performed on both of your Linodes.

Note

For the following sections of this guide, replace “example.com” with your domain name.

1. Disable the default Apache virtual host by entering the following command:

   sudo a2dissite *default
   

2. Navigate to your /var/www directory:

   cd /var/www
   

3. Create a folder to hold your website by entering the following command:

   sudo mkdir example.com
   

4. Create a set of folders inside the folder you’ve just created to store your website’s files, logs, and backups:

   sudo mkdir example.com/public_html
   sudo mkdir example.com/log
   

5. Create the virtual host file for the website:

   File: /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf

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   # domain: example.com # public: /var/www/example.com/public_html/ <VirtualHost *:80> # Admin email, Server Name (domain name), and any aliases ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com ServerName www.example.com ServerAlias example.com # Index file and Document Root (where the public files are located) DirectoryIndex index.html index.php DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/public_html # Log file locations LogLevel warn ErrorLog /var/www/example.com/log/error.log CustomLog /var/www/example.com/log/access.log combined </VirtualHost>

   Caution

   The file name must end with .conf in Apache versions 2.4 and later, which Ubuntu 14.04 uses. The .conf extension is backwards-compatible with earlier versions.

6. Enable the new website by entering the following command:

   sudo a2ensite example.com.conf
   

7. Restart Apache:

   sudo service apache2 restart
   

Install WordPress

1. On the primary Linode, download and install the latest version of WordPress. Replace any paths listed with the correct path for your configuration:

   cd /var/www
   wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
   tar -xvf latest.tar.gz
   cp -R wordpress/* /var/www/example.com/public_html
   

2. Configure the MySQL database for the new WordPress installation. You’ll need to replace wordpressuser and password with your own settings:

   mysql -u root -p
   CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'wordpressuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
   EXIT
   

3. Set permissions on the Document Root directory to enable WordPress to complete its configuration steps:

   chmod 777 /var/www/example.com/public_html/
   

4. Connect to your Linode’s IP address using your web browser, and walk through the configuration steps to fully install WordPress.

   Caution

   In order to ensure that each of your WordPress instances addresses the local database, you will need to ensure that the Database Host value in this step is set to localhost. This should be filled in by default.

5. Configure your WordPress URL and Site Address via the General Settings in the WordPress admin interface. Ensure that your domain is configured in both fields.

   

   Note

   After completing your WordPress installation steps and logging in for the first time, you should reset permissions on your Document Root directory to ensure additional security. You can do so with the following command:

   chmod 755 /var/www/example.com/public_html/

6. Once the WordPress installation steps have been completed, copy the configurations to your second Linode. Replace x.x.x.x with the second Linode’s IP address:

   rsync -r /var/www/* x.x.x.x:/var/www/.
   

7. Log in to the second Linode and restart Apache:

   sudo service apache2 restart
   

Configure Folder Sync With Lsyncd

1. Install Lsyncd on your primary Linode in the cluster.

   sudo apt-get install lsyncd
   

2. Create a configuration file in order to perform sync actions. Replace x.x.x.x with the Private IP address of the second Linode in your cluster.

   File: /etc/lsyncd/lsyncd.conf.lua

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   settings = { logfile = "/var/log/lsyncd.log", statusFile = "/var/log/lsyncd-status.log" } sync{ default.rsyncssh, delete = false, insist source="/var/www", host="x.x.x.x", targetdir="/var/www", rsync = { archive = true, perms = true, owner = true, _extra = {"-a"}, }, delay = 5, maxProcesses = 4, ssh = { port = 22 } }

3. Start the Lsyncd daemon:

   service lsyncd start
   

4. Test that Lsyncd started successfully:

   service lsyncd status
   

   If this command returns something other than lsyncd is running, double-check your lsyncd.conf.lua file and ensure that the RSA public key is in the right location on the secondary server.

5. Test replication by creating a file in your primary Linode’s /var/www folder. You should be able to see that same file in that location on the second Linode within a few seconds.

Configure Your Nodebalancer

1. Visit the NodeBalancers tab in the Linode Manager.

2. If you have not done so already, add a NodeBalancer, ensuring that it is in the same data center as your back-end Linodes.

3. Select your new NodeBalancer and click “Create Configuration.” Edit your configuration settings as follows:

   Port: 80
   Protocol: HTTP
   Algorithm: Least Connections
   Session Stickiness: Table
   Health Check Type: HTTP Valid Status
   

4. Once you click the “Save Changes” button, you will be prompted to add your nodes. Provide a unique label for each one, and enter the private network address and port in the address field for each of the nodes.

5. When you have added both of your nodes, ensure that the health checks mark them as up. Once both nodes are showing as up, return to the NodeBalancer’s main page and note the IP address listed. You should now be able to navigate to that IP address and view your webpage.

In order to test the high-availability functionality, either stop the Apache2/MySQL services on one of your nodes or power them down one at a time. The website should continue to be served without issue even when one of the nodes is marked as down.

Congratulations, you have now configured your high-availability WordPress site!