Question

Wordpress doesn't start with installing Wordpress with LEMP on Ubuntu 20.04

Posted on September 28, 2020
Ubuntu 18.04 LEMP Ubuntu 20.04 Configuration Management WordPress Ubuntu
Asked by katovonkatz

As I was following this tutorial https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-wordpress-with-lemp-on-ubuntu-18-04, I came a long way. But then after step 5, Wordpress doesn’t start on my website.

The website keeps displaying the html message that I programmed at step 4 of this tutorial https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-nginx-mysql-php-lemp-stack-on-ubuntu-20-04, which I installed in this file: /var/www/your_domain/index.html

I have to say that the OS I am using is Ubuntu 20.04 (spec Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.4.0-45-generic x86_64)), but I don’t think that the problem is there.

My best guess is that the problem must have something to do with a redirection. Can anyone help me out here? There are also similar questions below the tutorial, but the answers proposed are not working for me.

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Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• September 28, 2020

Accepted Answer

Hi there @KatoVonKatz,

There are a couple of things which could be causing this problem.

If you installed WordPress at /var/www/html/, you would need to remove the index.html file from there, you can do that with the following command:

rm /var/www/html/index.html

This needs to be done as WordPress uses an index.php file and that index.html is not part of the WordPress core files anyway.

Make sure that the directory that you’ve installed WordPress in has the correct ownership:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress

Change the /var/www/wordpress part if this is not the directory where you installed WordPress at.

If none of the above helps, check your Nginx error log:

sudo tail -100 /var/log/nginx/error.log

Let me know how it goes! Regards, Bobby

katovonkatz • October 27, 2020

@bobbyiliev , I will start a new threat here, because I can’t reply to you anymore via the above.

Yes, I did get an error report when I requested the nginx error log, but I can’t replicate that anymore.

But… now that I have the website up and running, as soon as I activate the code below, my website is down with an HTTP ERROR 500 message.

define('FS_METHOD', 'direct');

As soon as I remove the command, the website is active again. So, this really is the problem. I will share with you my error log. Maybe this has something to do with the transition from Ubuntu 18.04 to Ubuntu 20.04?

sudo tail -100 /var/log/nginx/error.log

2020/10/27 00:17:45 [error] 88235#88235: *2262 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 61.58.80.242, server: _, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "127.0.0.1"
2020/10/27 00:30:59 [error] 88235#88235: *2263 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 176.173.255.186, server: _, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "134.122.61.246"
2020/10/27 01:17:53 [error] 88235#88235: *2284 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 203.76.115.83, server: _, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "127.0.0.1"
2020/10/27 03:34:30 [error] 88235#88235: *2325 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 178.128.194.144, server: _, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "134.122.61.246"
2020/10/27 03:35:49 [error] 88235#88235: *2327 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 162.243.128.230, server: _, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "134.122.61.246"
2020/10/27 05:44:42 [error] 88235#88235: *2377 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 209.194.163.115, server: _, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "127.0.0.1"
2020/10/27 05:55:08 [error] 88235#88235: *2382 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 192.35.168.96, server: _, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "134.122.61.246"
2020/10/27 07:47:45 [error] 88235#88235: *2419 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 193.27.229.26, server: _, request: "GET /?XDEBUG_SESSION_START=phpstorm HTTP/1.1", host: "134.122.61.246:80"
2020/10/27 07:50:22 [error] 88235#88235: *2424 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 220.132.207.155, server: _, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "127.0.0.1"
2020/10/27 07:59:31 [error] 88235#88235: *2426 directory index of "/var/www/html/" is forbidden, client: 193.27.229.26, server: _, request: "GET /?a=fetch&content=<php>die(@md5(HelloThinkCMF))</php> HTTP/1.1", host: "134.122.61.246:80"
2020/10/27 08:28:36 [notice] 94444#94444: signal process started
2020/10/27 08:28:43 [error] 94445#94445: *2447 FastCGI sent in stderr: "PHP message: PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected 'define' (T_STRING) in /var/www/donutnetwerk.nl/wp-config.php on line 52" while reading response header from upstream, client: 91.141.140.37, server: donutnetwerk.nl, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock:", host: "donutnetwerk.nl"
2020/10/27 08:28:49 [error] 94445#94445: *2448 FastCGI sent in stderr: "PHP message: PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected 'define' (T_STRING) in /var/www/donutnetwerk.nl/wp-config.php on line 52" while reading response header from upstream, client: 91.141.140.37, server: donutnetwerk.nl, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock:", host: "donutnetwerk.nl"
2020/10/27 08:28:55 [error] 94445#94445: *2452 FastCGI sent in stderr: "PHP message: PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected 'define' (T_STRING) in /var/www/donutnetwerk.nl/wp-config.php on line 52" while reading response header from upstream, client: 91.141.140.37, server: donutnetwerk.nl, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock:", host: "donutnetwerk.nl