Setup WordPress On Google Cloud

Today, I want to show you how to set up a simple WordPress instance using Google Cloud and also how to setup link it to your domain.

So first of all, you may already have a domain, or you may want to buy a new domain. Any provider will do but if you want to keep it within the Google ecosystem you can use Google domains. This is usually relatively inexpensive and can range between £7–20. In my example, I was using names as my DNS registrar so I will update the DNS records on their system.

Once you have your domain sorted it’s time to set up your Google cloud account. No this is a straightforward process, and you will need a Google account to complete this. Use this link to the Google Cloud platform below and new users get $350 of credit for just signing up. (that’s $50 more than normal) That way you can test it out before you take the plunge.

Once you have signed up and gone to the console you will be presented with this screen. It seems very complicated, but it summarises all your activity on a dashboard. The platform is very powerful and can be upscaled to host enterprise systems. So be very careful… I accidentally provisioned an SQL server that costs £16 a day.,… yikes!!

STEP 1

First, you need to go to your marketplace in the sidebar as shown here.

STEP 2

Click the WordPress (Google Click to Deploy) if it’s not showing search for it in the search bar above.

STEP 3

Click the launch button.

STEP 4

You will then be presented with a deployment screen. Give your deployment a unique name. (this can only be in lower case) Then you want to select a region, costs vary depending on where they are placed. But it will show you the approximate cost for the month. changing the server setting can affect the price but stick with the default server as this will be enough to run your website. If you want more performance, select SSD but I think the standard disk should be fine and will be cheaper.

Then Make sure you enable HTTP & HTTPS traffic. Once done select the Terms Of Service and then click Deploy.

STEP 5

Let the installation complete. This may take 5 minutes or so. You will then be presented with your login details for your WordPress site, PHP my admin and the IP address for the new web server.

STEP 6

So, let’s go and test the WordPress site by logging in. Everything seems to work correctly and seems snappy, much better than my old hosting. This isn’t surprising as Google Cloud is the same platform that runs Google Maps etc! So now you have a basic install all set up and ready to go. You now need to set up your domain to work with the new server.

STEP 7

Log into the domain provider and navigate to the domain you wish to use for this website. Go to your DNS settings, all are laid out slightly differently. But you will want to change your DNS records. So in this example, I was using Namesco servers, so all we have to do is update two records to switch the website over.

STEP 8

Once you have found your DNS records, go and past the IP address from Google Cloud into the A Record for the default and for the www. A record. Then press saves and this will instantly update the DNS servers. It can take 5 mins or so to update, but it could take hours depending on propagation, but this is uncommon these days.

STEP 9

Now login via the WordPress site and then change the domain name as shown from the Google IP. Once you save the changes in WordPress it won’t let you log into it again using the IP. So if this all goes wrong and you don’t know the password you will have to go through this again from scratch. By deleting the virtual server.

Now I will show you how to delete your Google Cloud instance if you decide it’s no longer needed or made a mistake in setup. Navigate back to your Google Cloud console. Select the VM you want to delete; in this case, it was the test one we created. Then select the delete button at the top. And that’s it we just successfully created and deleted a WordPress website using Google Cloud, and we even linked a domain to the server.

I hope you have found this useful!

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