How to Install and Configure Apache for WordPress

Combining Apache with WordPress often works without having to make any updates or changes to the web server. However, in some cases, the server ap­pli­ca­tion needs to be updated or con­fig­ured to run WordPress. Learn how to install and configure Apache for WordPress.

What are the re­quire­ments for Apache for WordPress?

• A server running Linux
• Admin rights (root or sudo)

How to check your Apache version

You can find your version of Apache using the following commands:

• Ubuntu and Debian: sudo apache2 -v
• CentOS, Fedora and RHEL: sudo httpd -v

If you run the re­spec­tive command on your Linux system, you will get in­for­ma­tion about your Apache server, including the version number.

Close

In the example above, the Ubuntu server is running Apache version 2.4.52.

How to update Apache

The current version of WordPress requires Apache version 2.4 or later. This is so you can ensure that the web server is com­pat­i­ble with the PHP edition that is being used (7.4+). It also ensures that WordPress can fall back on the Apache mod_rewrite module. You can learn how to install PHP in our Digital Guide.

Ubuntu and Debian

On newer Ubuntu and Debian systems, including Ubuntu 22.04, install the latest version of Apache by first updating the package manager with the following command:

sudo apt update

The next step is to use the classic Apache2 in­stal­la­tion command to perform the upgrade:

sudo apt install apache2

CentOS, Fedora and RHEL

On newer CentOS and RHEL/Fedora dis­tri­b­u­tions, including CentOS 7, you can update Apache using the command:

sudo yum update

How to install mod_rewrite

WordPress uses Apache’s mod_rewrite rewrite engine to forward URLs and change them.

mod_rewrite is installed by default on CentOS and Red Hat systems. To install this module on Ubuntu and Debian, use the following command:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

After in­stalling it, you will need to restart Apache services using this command:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

You then regulate URL rewrites via a .htaccess file.

How to enable mod_rewrite in Apache

In some cases, you need to configure Apache in order for mod_rewrite to be executed. For this, the Apache con­fig­u­ra­tion file must be adapted ac­cord­ing­ly. The specific file will depend on your server’s web hosting setup. By default, the main Apache con­fig­u­ra­tion file for your server’s primary domain is:

• RHEL, Fedora and CentOS: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
• Ubuntu and Debian: /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

There may also be separate Apache con­fig­u­ra­tion files for each in­di­vid­ual domain. These are usually found at:

• RHEL, Fedora and CentOS: /etc/httpd/conf.d/[your domain name].conf
• Ubuntu and Debian: /etc/apache2/sites-available/[your domain name].conf

Once you have found the location of the con­fig­u­ra­tion file, open it with any text editor (ad­min­is­tra­tor access) and look for the following:

AllowOverride None

Close

Now replace the entry with the following:

AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

Save and exit the file, then restart Apache with the command:

sudo systemctl restart apache2