Quick start

This page takes a fresh server to a running panel and a first WordPress site. Most of the ten minutes is the installer downloading images.

What you need

A fresh Ubuntu 26.04 server on x86-64, with root access and at least 2 GB of memory.
Ports 80 and 443 open to the internet, in your provider’s firewall too.
A domain whose DNS you can edit. The steps below use example.com.

WPL7 takes the whole machine. The installer sets up Docker and turns on a firewall.

Managed installation

Want your own hosting without doing the setup yourself? We install WPL7 on your server and hand it over ready to use. The server, the panel and every site on it stay yours.

Get it installed

Install and create a site

Point DNS at the server: create two A records with its public IP address.

Name Value

panel.example.com the server’s IP address

*.dev.example.com the server’s IP address

Wait until both resolve. This command prints the address twice once they do:
Terminal window
```
dig +short panel.example.com test.dev.example.com
```
Install. Run this on the server, with your own domains and email address:
Terminal window
```
curl -fsSL https://github.com/andyfo/wpl7/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- \
  --panel-domain=panel.example.com \
  --dev-domain=dev.example.com \
  [email protected]
```
Let’s Encrypt writes to the --acme-email address about your certificates. The run ends with WPL7 is up. and the panel’s address.
Sign in. Give the panel a minute to start, then read the password it generated:
Terminal window
```
sudo docker logs wpl7-panel | grep -A2 'First boot'
```
Open https://panel.example.com and sign in as admin, with the password from the Generated password: line. Then choose your name at the foot of the sidebar and use Change password.
Create a site. Open Sites and choose New site. Enter a Site title and choose Continue. On the WordPress step, fill in Admin email. Choose Continue twice, then Create site.

When the job is done, copy the WordPress admin password. The panel shows it only this once. The site answers at <slug>.dev.example.com. Choose Open site page, then Log in to WordPress to open its dashboard.
Before real traffic, set up three things.
- A mail relay. Mail goes out directly by default, and many providers block that or file it as spam. Send it through an SMTP account instead. Open the configuration file:
  Terminal window
```
sudo nano /opt/wpl7/deploy/.env
```
  Fill in the three lines that are already there, empty, with your provider’s details:
```
SMTP_RELAYHOST=[smtp.example.com]:587
SMTP_USERNAME[email protected]
SMTP_PASSWORD=the-account-password
```
  Save the file, then apply it:
  Terminal window
```
sudo /opt/wpl7/provision/setup.sh
```
- Edge A Cloudflare token. If your domains are on Cloudflare, save an API token under Settings → DNS. Give it Zone → Zone → Read and Zone → DNS → Edit. The panel then writes DNS records for you, and dev sites can share one wildcard certificate.
- An alert address. Under Settings → Mail, fill in Send alerts to and choose Save settings. New releases, suspended mail, malware findings and failing offsite copies are emailed there, through the relay above.

Name	Value
`panel.example.com`	the server’s IP address
`*.dev.example.com`	the server’s IP address

Limits

The installer is for Ubuntu 26.04 on x86-64. The images are not built for ARM.
Piped into bash, the installer asks nothing. Every answer is a flag, and the panel generates the admin password.
The generated password is printed once, on the first boot. Editing PANEL_ADMIN_PASSWORD in .env afterwards changes nothing.
Without a Cloudflare token, each dev site gets a certificate of its own. Let’s Encrypt limits how many certificates one domain gets per week.

Quick start

What you need

Install and create a site

Limits

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