Getting Started

Getting Started with WooCommerce on Azure

2026-07-30 · woocommerce docs · azure

The CloudSOE WooCommerce image is a zero-touch online store: WordPress with the WooCommerce plugin and Storefront theme, on the same hardened Apache/PHP/MariaDB stack as our WordPress image. There is no web installer — on first boot the VM installs WordPress unattended with wp-cli, activates WooCommerce and Storefront, and generates a unique store admin password for you. You log in and land in the WooCommerce setup wizard.

What you’ll need

  • An Azure subscription
  • An SSH public key (password login is disabled in the image)
  • About ten minutes

Step 1 — Create the VM

  1. Find the CloudSOE WooCommerce offer in the Azure Marketplace and click Create.
  2. Choose a resource group, region and VM name.
  3. Pick a size — 2 vCPU / 4 GB (for example Standard_B2s or Standard_D2as_v4) suits most stores.
  4. Under Administrator account, select SSH public key, pick a username (e.g. azureuser) and paste your key. This account is the uid-1000 admin user that owns the credentials file and the site files over SFTP.
  5. Create or attach a public IP so you can reach the store. For production, make it Static so the address survives stop/start.

Step 2 — Open the firewall ports

In the VM’s network security group, allow inbound:

PortProtocolPurpose
22TCPSSH and SFTP administration
80TCPHTTP (redirects to the store)
443TCPHTTPS (the store)

Restrict port 22 to your own IP range where possible.

Step 3 — Let first boot finish

Two one-time services run in sequence on the very first boot, before Apache serves a single page:

  • wordpress-firstboot creates the database, writes wp-config.php with fresh salts, and generates a self-signed TLS certificate for your public IP.
  • woocommerce-firstboot then installs WordPress core unattended, activates the Storefront theme and the WooCommerce plugin, sets pretty permalinks and generates your store admin password.

This usually completes within a minute or two. You can watch it:

ssh <admin-user>@<public-ip>
systemctl status wordpress-firstboot woocommerce-firstboot

Step 4 — Retrieve your credentials

SSH in with the admin username you chose at deployment. The login banner (MOTD) shows your store URLs and points at the credentials file:

sudo cat /opt/wordpress/default-wordpress-credentials.txt

This file (mode 600) holds the generated MariaDB password and the WordPress admin login created on first boot (user admin plus a random password). Change the admin password after your first login.

Step 5 — Log in to your store

Your store is already installed — no setup screens. From your own machine (note: an Azure VM often cannot reach its own public IP from inside), browse to:

  • Storefront: https://<public-ip>/
  • Admin: https://<public-ip>/wp-admin

Your browser will warn about the self-signed certificate — expected on a fresh instance; see the configuration guide for switching to a trusted certificate and your own domain. Log in to wp-admin with the credentials from the file, and the WooCommerce onboarding wizard walks you through payments, shipping and your first products.

Next steps