Amazon Linux 2 with WordPress, PHP 8, MySQL 8 and Node.js (in progress)

Exciting voyage began on TU 2021-02-16.  After months of  WordPress (WP) warning about outdated PHP version, it was time to open a new Amazon Linux 2 instance and install all the latest gadgets.

This major upgrade triggered many errors and problems. I needed a place to store and accumulate the information on resolving the issues one-by-one. The main purpose of this article is to capture all the errors and stumbling blocks encountered along the way, so that we can preproduce all the steps  in a quick succession.

Let’s start with an approximate table of content.

Table of content

 – launching a new Amazon Linux 2 instance with 30 GB volume
– allocate new new IP address
– set new DNS entries with my domain provider
– configure puTTY, WinSCP and establishing connection
– set a proper time zone
– install Apache 2.4 and rename default group and user
– set new user and group rights to a default www directory
–  install PHP 8.0
 – Edit config.inc.php
– install MySQL 8.0 Community Server
– set new root password
– install phpMyAdmin
–  my.cnf to fix “binary logging” error
– create MySQL user with new password requirements
– restore MySQL databases from other instance
– copy existing sites from Amazon Linux 1
– install and configure a fresh copy on WP
– edit httpd.conf, httpd-le-ssl.conf and ssl.conf with nano
– install free self-signed certificate
– edit localhost.crt and localhost.key and test
– install certbot and real 90-days certificate
– install node.js
– install PM2 to run node.js server
– run node.js  server reboot (using PM2 restart)

The biggest time and effort were spent not in installing, but in adopting the existing code for new requirements.

Pending tasks

– automate Letsencrypt certbot to renew certificates
– automate DB backup with scheduler
– when everything ready – migrate all latest PROD DB one more time
– repoint DNS records to new Linux 2 server
– delete old Amazon Linux 1 instance
– free old allocated IP address
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Node.js – code changes and server restarts

If you make code changes in *.js files, you need to restart the server.  If you make changes in your *pug views – no restart is needed. Changes are available immediately after pressing the save button.

Node.js and MySQL – handle blank dates

You need to catch and handle blank date, by converting it into a null value:

if(fieldValues['adEffectiveDate'] == '') fieldValues['adEffectiveDate'] = null;

MySQL backup with scheduled scripts

When you create scripts with mysqldump and save the file as your_script.sh make sure to modify permissions at allow EXECUTE, and not only read and write. Here is example how to use 

mysqldump -y -u yourDBuser -pYourDBPassword yourDBname > /home/ec2-user/YourDir/yourDBname`expr substr $(date +%d) 2 1`.sql

This script will create a backup copy of your database with a name yourDBname + one number character from current date.  For example, if you run backup on 27-th, your backup file will be called yourDBname7.sql 

Work with crontab to schedule tasks

–010– set default editor to nano – export EDITOR=nano

–020– edit scheduled jobs with
crontab -e
For some reason, command above creates a file in a random location with a random fila name: /tmp/crontab.CqmlUl and then deletes it upon exit. Instead,  I used direct edit command:
sudo nano /etc/crontab

—030– list your scheduled jobs with crontab -l

–040– restart the scheduler
sudo systemctl restart crond
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Spacing when you include a pug VIEW

Your VIEW include directive should observe proper left spacing tabulation so that it will be included in proper HTML element from main VIEW.

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