Tutorial: Connect a WordPress instance in Lightsail to an Amazon Aurora database

Create a WordPress instance in Lightsail, and configure your application on it. The instance should be in a running state before you continue. For more information, see Tutorial: Launch and configure a WordPress instance in Amazon Lightsail.

Turn on VPC peering in your Lightsail account. For more information, see Set up peering to work with AWS resources outside of Lightsail.

Create an Aurora managed database in Amazon RDS. The database must be located in the same AWS Region as your WordPress instance. It should also be in a running state before you continue. For more information, see Getting started with Amazon Aurora in the Amazon Aurora User Guide.

Sign in to the Amazon RDS console.

Choose Databases in the navigation pane.

Choose the Writer instance of the Aurora database that your WordPress instance will connect to.

Choose the Connectivity & security tab.

In the Endpoint & port section, make a note of the Endpoint name and Port of the Writer instance. You will need these later when configuring your Lightsail instance to connect to the database.

In the Security section, choose the active VPC security group link. You will be redirected to your database’s security group.

Make sure that the security group for your Aurora database is selected.

Choose the Inbound rules tab.

Choose Edit inbound rules.

In the Edit inbound rules page, choose Add rule.

Complete one of the following steps:

In the Source text box, add the private IP address of your WordPress instance. You must enter the IP addresses in CIDR notation, which means that you must append /32. For example, to allow 192.0.2.0, enter 192.0.2.0/32.

Choose Save rules.

Sign in to the Lightsail console.

On the Lightsail home page, choose the Instances tab.

Choose the browser-based SSH client icon for your WordPress instance to connect to it using SSH.

After you're connected to your instance, enter the following command to connect to your Aurora database. In the command, replace DatabaseEndpoint with the endpoint address of your Aurora database and replace Port with the port of your database. Replace MyUserName with the name of the user that you entered when creating the database.

mysql -h DatabaseEndpoint -P Port -u MyUserName -p

You should see a response similar to the following example, which confirms that your instance can access and connect to your Aurora database.

If you don’t see this response, or you get an error message, then you might need to configure the security group of your Aurora database to allow the private IP address of your Lightsail instance to connect to it. For more information, see the Configure the security group for your Aurora database section of this guide.

Sign in to the Lightsail console.

In the Instances tab, choose the browser-based SSH client for your WordPress instance.

After the browser-based SSH client is connected to your WordPress instance, enter the following command. The command transfers the data from the bitnami_wordpress database that is on your instance and moves it to your Aurora database. In the command, replace DatabaseUserName with the name of the primary user that you entered when creating the Aurora database. Replace DatabaseEndpoint with the endpoint address of your Aurora database.

sudo mysqldump -u root --databases bitnami_wordpress --single-transaction --compress --order-by-primary -p$(cat /home/bitnami/bitnami_application_password) | sudo mysql -u DatabaseUserName --host  DatabaseEndpoint --password

Example

sudo mysqldump -u root --databases bitnami_wordpress --single-transaction --compress --order-by-primary -p$(cat /home/bitnami/bitnami_application_password) | sudo mysql -u DBuser --host  abc123exampleE67890.czowadgeezqi.us-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com --password

At the Enter password prompt, enter the password for your Aurora database, and press Enter.

You won't be able to see the password while you type it.

If the data transfer succeeds, a response similar to the following example is displayed:

If you get an error, confirm that you’re using the correct database user name, password, and endpoint, and try again.

In the browser-based SSH client that is connected to your WordPress instance, enter the following command to create a backup of the wp-config.php file:

cp /opt/bitnami/wordpress/wp-config.php /opt/bitnami/wordpress/wp-config.php-backup

Enter the following command to make the wp-config.php file writable:

sudo chmod 664 /opt/bitnami/wordpress/wp-config.php

Edit the database user name in the config file to the name of the primary user that you entered when creating the Aurora database.

sudo wp config set DB_USER DatabaseUserName

Edit the database host in the config file with the endpoint address and port number of your Aurora database. For example, abc123exampleE67890.czowadgeezqi.us-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com:3306.

sudo wp config set DB_HOST DatabaseEndpoint:Port

Edit the database password in the config file with the password for your Aurora database.

sudo wp config set DB_PASSWORD DatabasePassword

Enter the wp config list command to verify that the information you entered in the wp-config.php file is correct.

sudo wp config list

A result similar to the following example appears, displaying your configuration details:

Enter the following command to restart the web services on your instance:

sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart

When the services restart, a result similar to the following example is displayed:

Congratulations! Your WordPress site is now configured to use your Aurora database.

cp /opt/bitnami/wordpress/wp-config.php-backup /opt/bitnami/wordpress/wp-config.php