This quick-start guide is for users who meet any of the following criteria:
Note: If you are a first time LICENSED user of WPCloudDeploy, one of the services we offer is a FREE 1-on-1 walk-through so that you can get up and running fast! We’ll help you install the plugin, configure your ssh keys and get your first server deployed. Just open a support ticket to request this service!
If you choose to continue with this quick-start, here are the nine groups of actions you will perform:
Before proceeding with installation, please read the full requirements here. If the webserver running the website where WPCD will be installed does not meet all the requirements (especially the ones for timeouts and firewall/REST API), deploying servers and sites will fail.
Installing the plugin is performed just like any other WordPress plugin:
At this point the plugin is installed and ready to connect to DigitalOcean.
If you will not be connecting to DigitalOcean you should upload one of our premium providers – we support Linode, Vultr, Upcloud, Hetzner, Exoscale, AWS EC2, AWS Lightsail, Google Cloud, Azure and certain private clouds.
Note: Premium providers are only available with a WPCD license purchased from our store.
Once the plugin is installed and activated you should add an encryption key to your wp-config.php file. If you don’t do this now, api keys, private keys and other sensitive data will be stored without encryption in your database. If you add the key later you will have to re-enter your api keys and private key information.
define('WPCD_ENCRYPTION_KEY', 'your very long encryption key goes here');
Note: All the possible wp-config.php settings are documented on this page.
Each cloud provider has a different method for creating API keys. We have some caveats on keys and other restrictions for certain providers in our Cloud Provider documentation. Please make sure you read the information for the one(s) you are using before proceeding to the next step.
Also, please make sure you create a read-write keys/tokens – some providers allow you to specify these types of fine-grained permissions.
We use SSH keys and only SSH keys to connect to your cloud servers. This means that you must have at least one key-pair created and uploaded to your cloud server providers. OR, for certain providers, we can generate and install them for you.
We can automatically generate and upload SSH keys for the following cloud server providers:
Certain other providers have different SSH key requirements. Please make sure you read our Cloud Provider documentation for your provider(s).
AWS, GOOGLE CLOUD and UPCLOUD in particular have very specific SSH key requirements.
If you need to generate an SSH key-pair, you can use this guide to learn how to generate one.
If you going to be using your own SSH keys (either because we don’t offer the option to automatically generate them or because you want to use your own), then it is very important that you create and upload them to your cloud server provider before moving on to the next step!
Connecting to your cloud server provider can be very simple or very complex. Simpler providers include DigitalOcean, Linode & Vultr. Complex providers include AWS EC2 & Lightsail, Google Cloud & Azure.
We recommend that you read any of our Cloud Provider documentation notes for your provider(s).
For this section, we’ll assume you’re using DigitalOcean as your cloud server provider – if you’re using a different provider and have installed and activated the plugin for them, just substitute your provider for DigitalOcean in the instructions below. We’ll insert notes for the more complex providers as well.
WPCD depends on using SSH to connect to your servers. But the PHP and Web Server processes have short timeouts that need to be increased. It they’re not increased then the amount of time that a connection to one of your managed servers can remain open will be 30 seconds or less – not enough time to handle certain longer running tasks.
We have added instructions to the WPCLOUDDEPLOY->SETTINGS screen to help you increase your timeouts on PHP and various web servers. Please make sure you review these and update your server configurations.
If you place your WPCD server / site behind a proxy such as CloudFlare then you need to make sure that the following folders are white-listed so that they can be accessed by your new server:
/wp-content/plugins/wp-cloud-deploy/includes/core/apps/wordpress-app/scripts/v1/raw/
This folder just contains just text files in there that happen to contain our bash scripts. These scripts are part of what makes stuff happen – such as installing WordPress on your server.
If you run a firewall plugin on your WPCD server you should also make sure the folder is always available to the outside world (or at least every server IP you’re managing).
You will also need to white-list the call-back endpoints – they all start with or contain /wp-json/wordpress-app. For this, we would recommend that you whitelist your individual server ip addresses instead of leaving it open.
To create your first server:
To create your first site after creating your first server:
If you run into any issues or errors, check out this troubleshooting document to see if it helps. Otherwise just contact our tech support team and we’ll jump in to get you all squared away.
And, don’t forget, if you’re a new customer, we will be happy to walk you through this entire process with a 1-on-1 web/screen sharing session. Or, we can perform the installation for free for you. Just ask us and we’ll make an appointment to get it done for you.