Deploy WordPress to App Engine for PHP 7.2

This is a small command line tool for downloading and configuring WordPress on App Engine for PHP 7.2. The script allows you to create a working WordPress project for the App Engine standard environment. For deploying WordPress to the App Engine flexible environment, refer to the example at [appengine/standard/wordpress][../../flexible/wordpress]

Common Prerequisites

• Install Composer
• Create a new Cloud Project using the Cloud Console
• Enable Billing on that project
• Enable Cloud SQL API
• Install Google Cloud SDK
• Install the mysql-client command line tool

Project preparation

Configure Google Cloud SDK with your account and the appropriate project ID:

$ gcloud init

Create an App Engine application within your new project:

$ gcloud app create

Then configure the App Engine default GCS bucket for later use. The default App Engine bucket is named YOUR_PROJECT_ID.appspot.com. Change the default Access Control List (ACL) of that bucket as follows:

$ gsutil defacl ch -u AllUsers:R gs://YOUR_PROJECT_ID.appspot.com

Create and configure a Cloud SQL for MySQL 2nd generation instance

Note: In this guide, we use wordpress for the instance name and the database name. We use root for the database user name.

Create a new Cloud SQL for MySQL Second Generation instance with the following command:

$ gcloud sql instances create wordpress \
    --activation-policy=ALWAYS \
    --tier=db-n1-standard-1

Note: you can choose db-f1-micro or db-g1-small instead of db-n1-standard-1 for the Cloud SQL machine type, especially for the development or testing purpose. However, those machine types are not recommended for production use and are not eligible for Cloud SQL SLA coverage. See our Cloud SQL SLA for more details.

Then change the root password for your instance:

$ gcloud sql users set-password root \
    --host=% \
    --instance wordpress \
    --password=YOUR_INSTANCE_ROOT_PASSWORD # Don't use this password!

You will also need to create the database you want your WordPress site to use:

$ gcloud sql databases create wordpress --instance wordpress

SetUp

First install the dependencies in this directory as follows:

$ composer install

If it complains about extensions, please install phar and zip PHP extensions and retry.

Create a new WordPress Project

To download WordPress and set it up for Google Cloud, run the create command:

$ php wordpress.php create

The command asks you several questions, please answer them. Then you'll have a new WordPress project. By default it will create my-wordpress-project in the current directory.

Update an existing WordPress Project

If you are migrating an existing project to Google Cloud, you can use the update command:

$ php wordpress.php update path/to/your-wordpress-site

The command asks you several questions, please answer them. This will copy the files in the files directory and write the proper configuration. Then your WordPress project will be ready to deploy to Google Cloud!

Deploy to Google Cloud

CD into your WordPress project directory and run the following command to deploy:

$ gcloud app deploy \
    --promote --stop-previous-version app.yaml cron.yaml

Then access your site, and continue the installation step. The URL is: https://PROJECT_ID.appspot.com/

Go to the Dashboard at https://PROJECT_ID.appspot.com/wp-admin. On the Plugins page, activate the following plugins:

• Google App Engine for WordPress (also set the e-mail address in its settings page)

After activating the plugins, try uploading a media object in a new post and confirm the image is uploaded to the GCS bucket by visiting the Google Cloud console's Storage page.

Local Development

To access this MySQL instance, use Cloud SQL Proxy. Download it to your local computer and make it executable.

Go to the the Credentials section of your project in the Console. Click 'Create credentials' and then click 'Service account key.' For the Service account, select 'App Engine app default service account.' Then click 'Create' to create and download the JSON service account key to your local machine. Save it to a safe place.

Run the proxy by the following command:

$ cloud_sql_proxy \
    -dir /cloudsql \
    -instances=YOUR_PROJECT_ID:us-central1:wordpress \
    -credential_file=/path/to/YOUR_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON_FILE.json

Now you can access the Cloud SQL instance with the MySQL client in a separate command line tab.

$ mysql --socket /cloudsql/YOUR_PROJECT_ID:us-central1:wordpress -u root -p
mysql> use database wordpress;
mysql> show tables;
mysql> exit

Various workflows

Install/Update Wordpress, plugins, and themes

Because the wp-content directory on the server is read-only, you have to do this locally. Run WordPress locally and update plugins/themes in the local Dashboard, then deploy, then activate them in the production Dashboard. You can also use the wp-cli utility as follows (be sure to keep the cloud SQL proxy running):

# Install the wp-cli utility
$ composer require wp-cli/wp-cli
# Now you can run the "wp" command to update Wordpress itself
$ vendor/bin/wp core update --path=wordpress
# You can also update all the plugins and themes
$ vendor/bin/wp plugin update --all
$ vendor/bin/wp theme update --all

If you get the following error:

Failed opening required 'google/appengine/api/urlfetch_service_pb.php'

You can set a WP_CLI_PHP_ARGS environment variable to add include_path PHP configuration for wp-cli.

$ export WP_CLI_PHP_ARGS='-d include_path=vendor/google/appengine-php-sdk'

Then try the above commands again.

Remove plugins/themes

First Deactivate them in the production Dashboard, then remove them completely locally. The next deployment will remove those files from the production environment.

Update the base image

We sometimes release a security update for the php-docker image. You have to re-deploy your WordPress instance to get the security update.

Enjoy your WordPress installation!