Question

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

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
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• 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:
  1. 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:
  1. 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:
  1. 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