Configuring WooCommerce on Your CloudSOE Instance

This guide covers the layout and day-two configuration of the CloudSOE WooCommerce image on both AWS and Azure. It assumes you’ve finished one of the getting-started guides (AWS, Azure).

File locations

Services

Apache and MariaDB are managed by systemd and enabled at boot:

sudo systemctl status apache2 mariadb
sudo systemctl restart apache2      # after config changes

The two one-time setup services, wordpress-firstboot and woocommerce-firstboot, only run until they succeed once; after that they exit immediately thanks to their marker files (/var/lib/wordpress-firstboot.done, /var/lib/woocommerce-firstboot.done).

Manage the store with wp-cli

wp-cli is preinstalled — the same tool first boot used to install the site. Run it as the web user:

sudo -u www-data wp --path=/var/www/wordpress plugin list
sudo -u www-data wp --path=/var/www/wordpress user update admin --user_pass='a-new-strong-password'
sudo -u www-data wp --path=/var/www/wordpress option get siteurl

Database access

The store uses a local MariaDB database:

• Database: wordpress
• User: wordpress
• Password: in wp-config.php and in the credentials file

Connect from the shell with sudo mysql wordpress, or use phpMyAdmin at https://<your-ip>/phpmyadmin with the wordpress database user. If you don’t need phpMyAdmin, remove it:

sudo apt remove --purge phpmyadmin

Replacing the self-signed certificate

The image generates a self-signed certificate at first boot so HTTPS works immediately, but browsers won’t trust it — and payment providers require a real certificate. Once your domain points at the instance, switch to Let’s Encrypt:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache
sudo certbot --apache -d example.com -d www.example.com

Alternatively, install a purchased certificate and key at the paths in the table above, then sudo systemctl reload apache2 — always replace both files together.

Pointing a domain at your store

1. Create an A record for your domain pointing at the instance’s public IP (on AWS, allocate an Elastic IP first so the address survives stop/start; on Azure, set the public IP to Static).
2. Update the store’s own URL with wp-cli:

sudo -u www-data wp --path=/var/www/wordpress option update home 'https://example.com'
sudo -u www-data wp --path=/var/www/wordpress option update siteurl 'https://example.com'

Uploading files over SFTP

The admin user (ubuntu on AWS, your chosen username on Azure) can upload with any SFTP client and your SSH key:

sftp ubuntu@<public-ip>
sftp> cd /var/www/wordpress/wp-content

Keep file ownership consistent after bulk uploads:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress/wp-content

Next steps

• Tips & tricks — backups, updates, performance and troubleshooting