How to Host Your Own WordPress Site on a VM with Docker

A beginner-friendly walkthrough of setting up a self-hosted WordPress environment using Ubuntu Server, VMware, and Docker.

Introduction

If you’ve ever wanted to run your own WordPress site instead of relying on a hosting provider, this guide walks through building a complete local WordPress environment from scratch — using a virtual machine and Docker. By the end, you’ll have a working WordPress site running in containers, accessible right from your browser.

This setup is great for:

• Learning how WordPress, databases, and web servers fit together
• Testing plugins/themes safely without touching a live site
• Practicing DevOps basics like Docker and Git

What we’ll use:

• VMware (to run a virtual machine)
• Ubuntu Server (the OS)
• Docker & Docker Compose (to run WordPress + database + web server as containers)

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What You’ll Need

• A computer with VMware installed (Workstation, Player, or Fusion)
• An Ubuntu Server ISO
• Basic comfort with the command line (copy-paste is fine!)

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Step 1: Create the Virtual Machine

1. Open VMware and create a new VM
2. Select your Ubuntu Server ISO
3. Allocate resources — for a small setup like this, 2 CPU cores and 4GB RAM is a reasonable starting point
4. Set the network adapter to Bridged mode so the VM gets its own IP address on your home network, reachable directly from your laptop

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Step 2: Install Ubuntu Server

Walk through Ubuntu’s installer:

• Set your username and password
• Enable OpenSSH server during installation (makes it easy to manage the VM remotely later)
• Complete the install and reboot

Once it boots to a login prompt, you’re ready to go.

Update the system before continuing:

bash

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

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Step 3: Install Docker

Docker lets us run WordPress, its database, and a web server as isolated containers — without manually installing and configuring each one on the OS.

bash

sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

Verify it worked:

bash

docker --version
docker compose version

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Step 4: Set Up the Project Folder

Create a folder to hold all your configuration files:

bash

mkdir -p ~/wordpress-env
cd ~/wordpress-env

We’ll define credentials in a .env file, keeping secrets separate from the main config:

bash

nano .env

.env

SITE1_DB_NAME=wp_site1
SITE1_DB_USER=wp_site1_user
SITE1_DB_PASSWORD=your_secure_password
SITE1_DB_ROOT_PASSWORD=your_secure_root_password

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Step 5: Create the Docker Compose File

This file tells Docker what containers to run: a database, WordPress itself, and an Nginx web server to handle incoming requests.

bash

nano docker-compose.yml

docker-compose.yml

services:
  db1:
    image: mariadb:11
    container_name: db1
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      MYSQL_DATABASE: ${SITE1_DB_NAME}
      MYSQL_USER: ${SITE1_DB_USER}
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: ${SITE1_DB_PASSWORD}
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: ${SITE1_DB_ROOT_PASSWORD}
    volumes:
      - db1_data:/var/lib/mysql
    networks:
      - wp_net

  wordpress1:
    image: wordpress:latest
    container_name: wordpress1
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - db1
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db1
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: ${SITE1_DB_NAME}
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: ${SITE1_DB_USER}
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: ${SITE1_DB_PASSWORD}
    volumes:
      - wp1_data:/var/www/html
    networks:
      - wp_net

  nginx-proxy:
    image: nginx:latest
    container_name: nginx-proxy
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - wordpress1
    ports:
      - "8001:8001"
    volumes:
      - ./nginx-proxy/conf.d:/etc/nginx/conf.d
    networks:
      - wp_net

networks:
  wp_net:
    driver: bridge

volumes:
  db1_data:
  wp1_data:

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Step 6: Configure Nginx

Create a config folder and a routing file for the site:

bash

mkdir -p nginx-proxy/conf.d
nano nginx-proxy/conf.d/site1.conf

site1.conf

server {
    listen 8001;
    server_name _;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://wordpress1:80;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}

Tip: Using $http_host (instead of $host) makes sure the port number is preserved when Nginx forwards requests — otherwise WordPress may redirect to a URL missing the port, causing a “refused to connect” error.

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Step 7: Launch Everything

bash

docker compose up -d
docker compose ps

All containers should show as Up.

Check the logs if anything looks off:

bash

docker compose logs -f

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Step 8: Access WordPress from Your Browser

Find your VM’s IP address:

bash

ip addr show

Then, from your laptop’s browser, visit:

http://<your_vm_ip>:8001

You should land on the WordPress installation screen.
Fill in your site title, admin username, and password to complete the install.

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Wrapping Up

At this point, you have a fully working, self-hosted WordPress site running in Docker containers on a virtual machine — completely isolated from your host system, and easy to tear down or rebuild at any time with:

bash

docker compose down     # stop, keep data
docker compose up -d    # start again

Where to go from here:

• Add a second (or third) WordPress site by duplicating the database/WordPress service blocks with a new port
• Push your configuration to GitHub so the whole environment can be rebuilt on another machine
• Explore setting up HTTPS or a static IP for a more permanent setup

Self-hosting WordPress this way is a great, low-risk way to learn Docker, Linux server basics, and how a real web stack fits together — all without needing a live production server.

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Have questions or run into issues following along? Drop a comment below!