Setting up WordPress With WooCommerce on CentOS 6

Vultr instances are a great way to run your WordPress blog, but a more notable extension to WordPress is WooCommerce, an eCommerce plugin that extends the functionality of WordPress to allow you to sell products.

Requirements

Generally, you will want to have at least a 4GB Vultr compute instance. This is because of the memory and processor constraints that lower instances carry, and a moderately sized store will require at least the suggested instance size. However, it is possible to run it on the 512MB plan, with optimizations that will be further discussed.

Step 1: Installing the web server and WordPress

In order to maximize performance, we will be using NGINX. WordPress and Nginx can be installed by launching a Vultr One-click WordPress app.

Once you’ve accomplished this, take note of the domain you’ll be using and the IPv4 address of your WordPress app.

Step 2: Optimizing NGINX for WooCommerce and WordPress

Take a look at the NGINX configuration with your favorite text editor: nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf. Find the line worker_processes 1 and change it to the number of CPU cores allocated to your VPS. You can typically find this by typing cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "processor" | wc -l, or taking a look at the instance size you chose.

Then, change worker_connections 1024 to the gigabytes of RAM multiplied by 256. On a 2GB instance, this would be 2*256 = 512 connections.

Save the configuration, then exit.

Step 3: Getting the WooCommerce plugin

In order to download the latest version of the plugin, you’ll need to sign up for an account at WooCommerce. When you’ve signed up, you will be greeted with a small survey. Fill in the survey with your store details, then stop when you’ve reached step 6.

Locate the download button for the WooCommerce plugin. Right click the download button and copy the link.

Step 4: Installing WooCommerce into WordPress

On your instance, type in cd /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins to enter the WordPress plugin directory. Then, enter wget -O woocommerce.zip LINK_WE_COPIED_EARLIER, and unzip it:

unzip woocommerce.zip

Head over to the plugins section in your WordPress administrator area, and activate WooCommerce.

Step 5: Configuring WooCommerce

This is the part where you’ll need to configure some products. This can be done with the products tab on the sidebar. If you’d like to extend the functionality of WooCommerce, click on the WooCommerce tab and you’ll be able to manage its’ extensions.

Conclusion

In this article, you created a WooCommerce shop on WordPress, using Vultr’s one-click application installer. Happy selling!