WordPress High Availability

WordPress HA is a high availability version of the flexible, highly extensible content management system, specifically adapted for mission-critical projects. The solution uses multiple WordPress instances and shared file storage to improve application availability.

High Availability Architecture Benefits

• Fault Tolerance. Multiple WordPress instances are deployed in a single zone with automatic recovery on failures.
• Shared Filesystem. Uses Yandex Cloud Filesystem to ensure WordPress files synchronization between all instances with high performance.
• Managed Database. Uses Yandex Managed Service for MySQL with automatic backup, replication, and monitoring.
• Automatic Recovery. When one instance fails, traffic is automatically redirected to working servers.
• Load Balancing. Network Load Balancer evenly distributes requests across available instances.

WordPress Core Features

• Gutenberg Block Editor. A modern, block-based visual editor that lets you build pages from pre-made content blocks (text, images, galleries, covers, columns, buttons, etc.) without coding skills.
• Thousands of themes & plugins. A huge library of free and premium extensions for adding any functionality: SEO, forms, caching, multilingual support, e-commerce, and more.
• User & role management. Built-in roles (Administrator, Editor, Author, etc.) for organizing editorial workflows and team collaboration.
• SEO & marketing. Basic SEO features out of the box and advanced capabilities via plugins (Yoast SEO, All in One SEO, etc.), plus integrations with analytics and marketing tools.
• Deep customization. Theme editor, widgets, menus, child themes, and full code access for developers.
• E-commerce with WooCommerce. Turn your site into an online store using the WooCommerce plugin: product catalog, cart, checkout, and integrations with payment gateways.

Additionally, the following plugins are automatically installed and configured together with WordPress:

• S3 Uploads — integrated with Yandex Object Storage for storing media files.
• WP Mail SMTP — integrated with Yandex Cloud Postbox for sending email notifications from your site.

1. Create a public DNS zone for the domain you will use for the application and save its ID. Delegate the domain to Yandex Cloud DNS: specify the ns1.yandexcloud.net. and ns2.yandexcloud.net. name servers with your registrar.

2. Create a Yandex Virtual Private Cloud network and two subnets in that network: one in ru-central1-a and the other in ru-central1-d.

3. Create a separate Yandex Lockbox secret for the MySQL database with the db_password key and a text password value. To provide your own WordPress administrator password, create a separate secret with the wp_admin_password key. The administrator secret is optional: if omitted, the application automatically creates a secret with a random password during installation.

4. In the management console, select the folder where you want to deploy the application.

5. Select the Cloud Apps service.

6. In the left-hand panel, select Marketplace.

7. Select WordPress HA and click Use.

8. Specify:

   • Application name — the name for your WordPress HA instance.
   • (Optional) Application description.
   • Service account with the admin role for the folder, or select Auto to have the required service account created during installation.
   • DNS zone — select the DNS zone for hosting the application domains.
   • Site subdomain — (optional) specify a subdomain for WordPress.
   • Administrator login — the username for the WordPress administrator account (admin by default, can be changed during installation).
   • Administrator email — the email address that will be used to create the WordPress administrator account, send system notifications, and restore the password.
   • VPC subnets — select subnets in ru-central1-a and ru-central1-d belonging to the same cloud network for deploying the MySQL cluster and virtual machines with a filesystem.
   • VM group size — number of virtual machines in the group (default is 2). Use at least two VMs for a fault-tolerant configuration. With one VM, there is no WordPress redundancy.
   • Filesystem size — size of the shared filesystem in GB (default is 100 GB).
   • Database password secret ID — ID of the previously created secret with the db_password key for connecting to the Managed Service for MySQL cluster.
   • (Optional) Administrator password secret ID — ID of the previously created separate secret with the wp_admin_password key. If omitted, the application automatically creates a secret with a random password.
   • (Optional) Public SSH key — key for connecting to the VMs. Use the wordpress user to connect over SSH. This user is distinct from the WordPress site administrator.

   Note: You can find information about other available fields (VM parameters, etc.) in the installation form.

9. Click Install and wait for the installation to complete.

After successful installation, WordPress will be available at:

• Main site: https://your-domain
• WordPress admin panel: https://your-domain/wp-admin

An administrator account for WordPress is automatically created with the specified login and email. The administrator password can be:

• set in advance using a Yandex Lockbox secret, specified in the installation parameters;
• obtained after installation: in this case, the password will be generated automatically and stored in the Lockbox secret created for the application, which you can view in the management console;
• reset using the standard WordPress password reset form, since the administrator account is linked to the specified administrator email address.

Uninstalling the Application

Before deleting the application, complete the following steps:

1. Delete all objects from the Object Storage buckets created for this WordPress HA instance. Non-empty buckets cannot be deleted.
2. Delete the Yandex Cloud Postbox sender created by this instance if it is not used by other applications. It is not automatically deleted with the application.
3. Delete the DNS records created to verify this Postbox sender if they are not used by other applications.
4. Delete the WordPress HA instance in Cloud Apps and wait for the operation to complete.
5. Verify that the application resources have been deleted. The DNS zone, network, subnets, and input secrets created beforehand are external dependencies; delete them separately only if they are no longer needed.

• Critical corporate websites requiring high availability.
• Large, high-traffic news and media outlets.
• WooCommerce-based online stores requiring continuous operation.
• Corporate websites and intranet systems for large organizations.
• SaaS platforms and web applications with critically important SLAs.

Yandex Cloud technical support is available 24/7. The types of requests you can submit and the relevant response times depend on your pricing plan. You can switch to the paid support plan in the management console. You can learn more about the technical support terms and conditions here.