Just a few days ago, after checking out what my friend Bobby Shea had done with his blog, decided to create a new blog. More for the fun and personal stuff than this tech one. http://stuff.d3planet.com http://d3planet.com/clement/.
Anyway, I always enjoy playing with new technology, especially if something is plug-and-play, so I decided to download the Turnkey Linux WordPress Appliance. It really pretty cool. I created a new VM in my lab, gave it 256MB of RAM, 10GB of HD storage space, mounted the ISO, and fired up the VM.
The installation was honestly one of the easiest ever. I was challenged for new passwords a few times, and the installation complete with me looking at a console screen with a bunch of sites on the server, 1 for the blog, and others for management. I added the necessary DNS entries, created a firewall rule in ISA Server and hit it. Talk about a pretty seemless process, I was really impressed with the appliance and the fact that it behaved as documented. As any tech professional can attest, that’s not always guaranteed. Hell as any general user can attest. lol.
Anyway, I wanted to upgrade the environment to the latest version of WordPress, so I went to the wordpress site, downloaded the bits, and started following their 3-step guide to upgrading. I just knew I would run into trouble there, but I did not. At least not much trouble. I don’t claim to know much about Linux, or WordPress for that matter, so I fiddled around with the admin panels until I was significantly aware of the fact that I was going to have to upgrade manually. I fired up Veeam’s FastSCP, knowing that it can handle file transfers into linux environments, and started following the 3-steps to upgrade. Delete this, copy that, replace that, backup this. Next thing I know, upgrade complete, no beats skipped.
Then, deciding to push my luck, I decided to install some plugins, widgets, and themes. Again, no issue. Not sure what I was expecting, but I know I wasn’t expecting things to go so smoothly.
Next push, decided to download the WordPress iPhone app. Again, no issue. Don’t get me wrong, I love Microsoft and MOSS, but wow, a blog up and running and ready for posting from scratch within the span of a few hours, self-hosted? Hmm.
Guess I’ll end this by saying, WORDPRESS ROCKS! It’s not nearly as deep as a MOSS environment, but that does keep it simple for just what you’d expect out of the product.
WordPress Appliance Turnkey Linux Software Appliances
7 comments
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Eric
September 12, 2009 at 16:11 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Great writeup! I’ve had turnkey linux’s wordpress appliance for a while, but never had the gumption to upgrade it and get it up and running. You’ve convinced me!
Clement DeLarge
September 13, 2009 at 10:00 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Awesome Eric! I hope your implementation goes as smoothly as mine did.
Eric
September 17, 2009 at 07:14 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
And it’s up (ericcarrera.com). Very helpful post! I’m sure I’ll also be referencing your Sept 12th post on configuring automatic wordpress upgrades and updates. Great work!
Clement DeLarge
September 17, 2009 at 11:16 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Nice! Nice theme too!
Alon Swartz
September 29, 2009 at 13:02 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Thanks for the great write up Clement!
I just tweeted about it: http://twitter.com/alonswartz/status/4477122840
Clement DeLarge
September 29, 2009 at 13:21 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Hey Alon, thanks for the tweet! And thank you for the great appliances!
Application Performance Management
October 10, 2009 at 09:31 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
WordPress is a fantastic program. It is easy to install and so versatile. It can be used statically or dynamically, depending on what a client needs.
Good choice in going with WP! Just make sure to keep it up to date.