Thanks to my family for encouraging me to start a blog. I asked my father for help in getting it started. My father suggested I use AWS Lightsail. I was a bit concerned as I haven’t done any web stuff before much less Cloud web. I was told it was simpler then a ‘traditional’ web server, which I don’t even know about. Well what I can say is Lightsail is EASY!!!
Now my expectations:
Vs Reality
I started by going to the LightSail service once logged into my account that is a part of my fathers AWS account. I then selected a WordPress instance. I chose a static IP address. Then I recorded some logon information. For more on the process and learn for yourself check out this guide.
Launch and configure a WordPress instance in Amazon LightSail.
I was suggested to do things a bit different as my domain was registered in Route 53! Route 53 is Amazons DNS service. I needed to setup my ‘hosted zone’ which keeps the domain name to IP address information for the internet. It was a bit confusing but I was explained it’s like a phone book for the internet. DNS stands for Domain Name Service. Like the 411 phone service in the days of traditional phones, it looks up a domain name like helplearnlive.com and returns and IP address (phone number). I could have done this in Lightsail but the domain was already registered.
The next tricky part was I needed to set WordPress to use a certificate. This allows web pages to be accessible with encrypted HTTPS vs unencrypted HTTP. Still learning on this one, but I’m told it’s more secure and I understand what encryption is, maybe not all of how it works but I’m glad it’s working.
I used this guide Enabling HTTPS on your WordPress instance in Amazon Lightsail to setup the HTTPS. Shout out to Let’s Encrypt! for their service. Thank you!!!
You can follow my steps if you want to setup your own blog. It’s in the order I mentioned, only thing I left out was backups but you can find that in Lightsail. Look for Snapshots.
Now begins the journey of learning WordPress! I hope you enjoy!