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Though ArchWiki has a page that explains the installation process of WordPress, it doesn’t cover the configuration for Nginx. (Yes, I prefer Nginx to Apache.) Fortunately, the NGINX wiki has provided some good examples. Here we combine them with uWSGI to avoid modifying global php.ini so it remains intact and secure.

Prerequisites

  • WordPress is downloaded to /opt/wordpress, with the correct permission http:http set.
  • nginx, uwsgi-plugin-php and other modules of PHP are installed.
  • Nginx is configured to use virtual hosts. Manual creation of /etc/nginx/sites-available and /etc/nginx/sites-enabled is required. And don’t forget to add the include directive in nginx.conf.

Getting started

Add the following server block to /etc/nginx/sites-available/wordpress. Replace www.example.com with your domain name.

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name www.example.com;

    root /opt/wordpress;
    index index.php;

    location = /favicon.ico {
        log_not_found off;
        access_log off;
    }

    location = /robots.txt {
        allow all;
        log_not_found off;
        access_log off;
    }

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        # ...
    }

    location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico)$ {
        expires max;
        log_not_found off;
    }
}

Configuring uWSGI

Let’s begin first by creating a file named /etc/uwsgi/wordpress.ini. Append the following content:

[uwsgi]
plugins = php

socket = /run/uwsgi/%n.sock
processes = 2
master = true
procname-master = uwsgi %n

; drop privileges
uid    = http
gid    = http
umask  = 027

; reload whenever this file changes
touch-reload = %p

; enforce a DOCUMENT_ROOT
php-docroot     = /opt/wordpress/%n
; limit allowed extensions
php-allowed-ext = .php
; search for index.php if required
php-index = index.php

; all php configurations are for this instance only

; change your timezone
php-set = date.timezone=Etc/UTC
; limit accessable directories
php-set = open_basedir=/tmp/:/proc/:/opt/wordpress/
; prevent php information leak
php-set = expose_php=false

; change this if you want to upload files in bigger size
php-set = upload_max_filesize=16M
php-set = post_max_size=16M
; change accordingly
php-set = memory_limit=512M
; nginx does this
php-set = output_buffering=off

; php modules
php-set = extension=mysqli
php-set = extension=gd
php-set = extension=iconv
php-set = extension=imagick
php-set = extension=exif

As described in here, %n refers to the filename without extension, and %p refers to the absolute path of the file.

Fill in the missing location block. For modifier descriptions, please visit uWSGI docs.

location ~ \.php$ {
    include uwsgi_params;
    uwsgi_modifier1 14;
    # uwsgi_modifier2 0; # default value
    uwsgi_pass unix:/run/uwsgi/wordpress.sock;
}

Activate settings by running the following commands:

cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
ln -s ../sites-available/wordpress
systemctl start nginx
systemctl start uwsgi@wordpress.socket

Complete installation

Once you have spent a couple of hours setting up your http server, php, and mysql, it is finally time to let WordPress have its five minutes and install itself.

— wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wordpress