Kubernetes is a powerful container orchestration platform that can be used to deploy and manage complex applications with ease. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of deploying WordPress, a popular content management system, on an AWS Kubernetes cluster. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have a scalable and highly available WordPress setup running on Kubernetes.

Prerequisites

Before you start, ensure you have the following prerequisites in place:

1. AWS Account: You need an active AWS account with necessary permissions to create and manage resources like EC2 instances, EKS clusters, and RDS databases.
2. Kubernetes Cluster: Set up an Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) cluster on AWS. You can create an EKS cluster using the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform. Make sure kubectl is configured to connect to your cluster.
3. Helm: Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes. Install Helm on your local machine and configure it to work with your Kubernetes cluster.
4. Storage Class: Ensure that your EKS cluster has a storage class configured for dynamic volume provisioning. You can use the default gp2 storage class or create a custom one.
5. AWS CLI: Install the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) and configure it with your AWS credentials.
6. Domain Name: Have a registered domain name that you can use for your WordPress site. This guide assumes you have a domain like example.com.
7. SSL Certificate (Optional): If you want to secure your WordPress site with HTTPS, you’ll need an SSL certificate. You can obtain a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt or use a commercial certificate.

Step 1: Set Up a MySQL Database

WordPress relies on a database to store its content and configurations. In this guide, we’ll use Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) to set up a managed MySQL database.

1. Log in to your AWS Management Console.
2. Navigate to the RDS service.
3. Click “Create database” and choose MySQL as the database engine.
4. Configure your database settings, including the DB instance identifier, master username, and password. Make sure to choose the appropriate instance size and allocate sufficient storage.
5. In the Advanced settings section, select a VPC and security group that allows traffic from your EKS cluster.
6. Review your settings and create the database. It will take a few minutes to provision the RDS instance.
7. Once the RDS instance is running, note the endpoint, username, and password. You will need these details to connect WordPress to the database.

Step 2: Deploy WordPress with Helm

Helm simplifies the deployment of complex applications on Kubernetes by packaging everything into charts. Here’s how you can deploy WordPress using Helm:

1. Add the Helm official repository:

   helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami

2. Update your Helm repositories:

   helm repo update

3. Create a values.yaml file for your WordPress deployment. Customize it with your preferences, including your MySQL database details and domain name. For example:

   wordpressUsername: admin
   wordpressPassword: your_password
   wordpressEmail: your_email@example.com
   wordpressFirstName: Your
   wordpressLastName: Name
   wordpressBlogName: Your Blog
   wordpressScheme: https
   wordpressHost: example.com
   wordpressTablePrefix: wp_
   mariadb.enabled: false
   externalDatabase.host: your-db-host.rds.amazonaws.com
   externalDatabase.user: db_user
   externalDatabase.password: db_password
   externalDatabase.database: db_name

4. Deploy WordPress using Helm:

   helm install my-wordpress bitnami/wordpress -f values.yaml

This will create a WordPress deployment with your specified configurations.

Step 3: Set Up Ingress for WordPress

To make your WordPress site accessible from the internet, you’ll need to set up an Ingress resource in Kubernetes.

1. Create an Ingress resource YAML file, e.g., wordpress-ingress.yaml:

   apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
   kind: Ingress
   metadata:
     name: wordpress-ingress
   spec:
     rules:
     - host: example.com
       http:
         paths:
         - path: /
           pathType: Prefix
           backend:
             service:
               name: my-wordpress
               port:
                 number: 80

Replace example.com with your actual domain.

2. Apply the Ingress configuration:

   kubectl apply -f wordpress-ingress.yaml

3. Ensure that your domain’s DNS records point to your cluster’s Ingress controller’s external IP address. You can find this IP address using:

   kubectl get svc -n <ingress-namespace>

Step 4: Configure SSL (Optional)

If you want to secure your WordPress site with HTTPS, you can use Let’s Encrypt to obtain a free SSL certificate. Install the Cert-Manager for Kubernetes and create a certificate resource to enable HTTPS.

Here’s a basic example of a certificate resource:

apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Certificate
metadata:
  name: example-com-tls
spec:
  dnsNames:
  - example.com
  secretName: example-com-tls-secret
  issuerRef:
    name: letsencrypt-prod

Make sure you replace example.com with your actual domain. Apply this certificate resource to enable HTTPS.

Step 5: Access Your WordPress Site

After following the above steps, your WordPress site should be up and running on your AWS EKS cluster. You can access it by navigating to your domain name (e.g., https://example.com).

From here, you can set up your WordPress site, install themes and plugins, and start publishing content.

Conclusion

Deploying WordPress on Kubernetes on AWS allows you to leverage the power of container orchestration while benefiting from AWS’s infrastructure scalability. With the right configurations and settings in place, your WordPress site will be highly available and secure, ready to handle traffic and serve your content to the world.