How To Set Up WordPress in Your Home PC

Posted by Pubudu Kodikara on Dec 17, 2009 in Tips and Tricks (Hacks), Web | 25 comments

For most of us, if we want to change something in our blog, we straightaway implement it on our blog without even testing! Is it right? Actually this is a big risk because if something goes wrong and crashes our web site….. we are doomed! So its better to test before you implement it. But, how are we going to test it? By buying more hosting space? Nope… theres an easy way in which you can test it on your own home PC!

In here we are going to set up a small virtual machine that will run on your PC and work as an actual Web Server!  (Don’t worry you don’t have to know how to set up a server) After that you can set up a new WordPress installation on it (or use the one which is already installed in it) or make a backup of your existing site. Got the idea? Then lets start….

1) What do we need?

• First we need a VM Ware image of the TurnKey WordPress Appliance. You can get it from here.
• Next we need Virtual Box.  You can get it from here

For Ubuntu users (Run the following command from the terminal (In the main menu Applications > Accessories > Terminal) :

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose

• Next we need a FTP client, for now we’ll use Filezilla

For Ubuntu users (Run the following command from the terminal (In the main menu Applications > Accessories > Terminal) :

sudo apt-get install filezilla

2) How to Set Up the Virtual Machine?

• After you download and install Virtual Box, open it and click on “New” as shown in the image :

Add New Virtual Machine

• In the next window click on “Next”. After that give a name for your Virtual Machine, For “Operating System” select “Linux” . For the version select “Ubuntu Linux” and click “Next”

Give a Name and Set the Version

• Next set the amount of memory for the virtual machine and click “Next” (Do not give too much, keep some to your own system )

Set the amount of Memory

• In the next window select “Boot Hard Disk (Primary Master)”  (By default its selected) and select “Use existing hard disk”. Now click on select hard disk button as shown in the image :

Use existing hard disk

• Next, click on the “Add” button as shown in the image, select the image you have downloaded “turnkey-wordpress-2009.10-hardy-x86.vmdk” and click on Open. After that select the image and click on “Select” . Click “Next” to proceed.

Add the image

• Then they will give you a summary of the OS, read it (if you want) and click on “Finish”.

• Next, select your Virtual Machine and click on “Settings” as in the image :

Go To Settings

• In the settings window go to the “Network” tab and in the “Attached to” field select “Bridged Adapter” and click “OK”

Attached to Bridged Adapter

How Start this new Server?

• First select your Virtual Machine and click on “Start” (Next to Settings button). Then the system will boot up and take you to the TurnKey Linux Configuration Console.

TurnKey Linux Configuration Console

• After that save whats in the Configuration Console and minimize it.

How to use FTP?

• Now open your FTP client (we are using filezilla) and connect to your virtual machine with :

IP : The IP given in the TurnKey Linux Configuration Console

Protocol : SFTP – SSH File Transfer Protocol

Logontype (used in filezilla) : normal

User : root

Setup FTP

• When connecting, your FTP client will say that this is an “Unknown host key” and will ask whether to trust it or not….  I think your trust your own machine, so select trust this host.
• After you login, go to the following folder in the virtual machine (simply copy and paste the path into the FTP client as shown in the image). Now this is the folder which you have your wordpress files!

/var/www/wordpress

var-www

How to login to the WordPress Admin Panel?

• Open your web browser and type the address given as “Web” in the “Configuration Console”. Now this is your site.
• To login to the admin area put “/wp-admin” to the end of the above address.

WordPress: username : admin, password : turnkey

TurnKey have already installed WordPress 2.8.4 with some plugins, but if you want you can remove them and install your own WordPress installation…

Congrats! Now you have your own server with WordPress! Now you can import the posts from your site if you want to make a backup. Enjoy!