Getting Started

Getting Started with WordPress on Azure

2026-07-30 · wordpress docs · azure

The CloudSOE WordPress image gives you a complete WordPress stack — Apache, PHP, MariaDB, phpMyAdmin and SFTP — on a hardened Ubuntu base. The image contains no baked-in passwords: on first boot your VM generates its own database credentials and a per-instance TLS certificate, then hands you a fresh WordPress installer.

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 WordPress 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 sites.
  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 WordPress files over SFTP.
  5. Create or attach a public IP so you can reach the site.

Step 2 — Open the firewall ports

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

PortProtocolPurpose
22TCPSSH and SFTP administration
80TCPHTTP (WordPress)
443TCPHTTPS (WordPress)

Restrict port 22 to your own IP range where possible.

Step 3 — Let first boot finish

On the very first boot the VM runs a one-time setup service that:

  • creates the WordPress database and a unique database password,
  • writes wp-config.php with fresh authentication salts,
  • generates a self-signed TLS certificate for your VM’s public IP,
  • saves the generated credentials to a root-protected file.

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

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

Step 4 — Retrieve your credentials

SSH in with the admin username you chose at deployment. The login banner (MOTD) shows the VM’s public IP and points at the credentials file:

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

This file (mode 600) holds the generated MariaDB password for the wordpress database user.

Step 5 — Complete the WordPress installer

From your own machine (note: an Azure VM often cannot reach its own public IP from inside), browse to https://<public-ip>/. 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.

Complete the WordPress installer: language, site title and your WordPress admin account. That account is yours — it is never stored in the image.

Next steps