In this course, you’ll learn how to build a modern, secure, and highly optimized web hosting platform using Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, NGINX, MariaDB, PHP 8.5, and WordPress. Starting with a fresh server, we’ll work step-by-step through every stage of planning, installation, hardening, optimization, and long-term administration.
This course focuses on production-ready server administration, not local development environments such as Docker, XAMPP, WAMP or MAMP. Every topic is taught using a real Ubuntu server configured using industry best practices. Rather than relying on optimization and security plugins to solve server problems, you’ll learn how to build a secure, high-performance hosting environment from the operating system upwards. Plugins can enhance an already well-configured server, but they should never be used as a substitute for proper server administration. Unlike many courses that simply show you *what* to type, this course explains why each configuration is important. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of Linux server administration, allowing you to confidently deploy and maintain production-ready WordPress websites.
Throughout the course you’ll learn how to:
- Plan your server specifications and hosting environment.
- Secure Ubuntu using industry best practices.
- Install and configure the complete LEMP stack.
- Understand how NGINX configuration files work.
- Harden and optimize NGINX, MariaDB and PHP.
- Install and secure WordPress for production.
- Configure isolated PHP-FPM pools for each website.
- Implement FastCGI Cache, Valkey object caching, and application-side caching.
- Tune PHP-FPM for different workloads.
- Configure Cloudflare for security and performance.
- Host multiple websites and subdomains on a single server.
- Perform ongoing server administration, monitoring and maintenance.
