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Deploy Your Own Website with WebsiteBox — ProjectPublic | ProjectPublic

Deploy Your Own Website with WebsiteBox

Go from zero to a live and secure website on your own server. No coding or technical experience required.

Seth

Published March 22, 2026

0

Beginner

1 hour

Unverified

Tested with:OSUbuntu 22.04 LTSDocker24.0+WebsiteBox1.0

Steps (10)

1Understand what you're building
2Get a Server (~5 minutes)
3Get a Domain Name (~5 minutes)
4Connect to Your Server (~2 minutes)
5Run the Installer (~5-10 minutes)
6Complete the Setup Wizard (~3 minutes)
Point Your Domain to Your Server

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7

8Launch Your Website

9Visit Your Site

10Keep Your Site Running

1

Understand what you're building

In this guide, you'll set up a complete website hosting stack on your own server using WebsiteBox — an open-source installer that bundles WordPress, a database, SSL certificates, and a reverse proxy into a single command.

By the end, you'll have a live website with HTTPS, running on a server you control, for about $5-10/month.

A credit card for the server (~$5-10/month)
A domain name (~$10-15/year)
About 60 minutes of time
Zero coding experience required

2

Get a Server (~5 minutes)

You need a Virtual Private Server (VPS) — a computer in a data center that's always on and connected to the internet. We recommend Linode or DigitalOcean for beginners.

Minimum specs:

1 GB RAM
25 GB storage
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Most providers offer $100 in free credits for new accounts. Check for current promotions before signing up.

3

Get a Domain Name (~5 minutes)

Buy a domain from any registrar — Namecheap, Cloudflare, or Google Domains all work fine. You'll point it at your server in a later step.

Just buy the domain for now. We'll set up DNS after the server is ready.

4

Connect to Your Server (~2 minutes)

Open a terminal (Mac/Linux) or PowerShell (Windows) and connect via SSH:

Terminal

$ ssh root@your-server-ip
The authenticity of host 'your-server-ip' can't be established.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
root@your-server-ip's password:

Enter the password from your server provider's dashboard. You're now connected to your server.

5

Run the Installer (~5-10 minutes)

WebsiteBox has a one-line installer that sets up everything automatically:

The installer will:

Install Docker and Docker Compose
Set up WordPress with a MySQL database
Configure Nginx as a reverse proxy
Install Certbot for automatic SSL certificates

Terminal

$ curl -fsSL https://websitebox.dev/install.sh | bash
[WebsiteBox] Installing Docker...
[WebsiteBox] Pulling images...
[WebsiteBox] Starting services...
[WebsiteBox] ✓ Installation complete!
[WebsiteBox] Run 'websitebox setup' to configure your site.

6

Complete the Setup Wizard (~3 minutes)

Run the interactive setup wizard to configure your domain and admin account:

The wizard will ask for:

Your domain name
Admin email address
Site title
Admin username and password

7

Point Your Domain to Your Server

Go to your domain registrar's DNS settings and create an A record pointing to your server's IP address:

Also add a CNAME record for the www subdomain:

DNS changes can take 5-30 minutes to propagate. You can check progress at whatsmydns.net.

8

Launch Your Website

Once DNS has propagated, activate SSL and start your site:

Terminal

$ websitebox activate
[WebsiteBox] Requesting SSL certificate for yourdomain.com...
[WebsiteBox] ✓ SSL certificate obtained!
[WebsiteBox] Restarting services...
[WebsiteBox] ✓ Your site is live at https://yourdomain.com

9

Visit Your Site

Open your browser and go to https://yourdomain.com. You should see the default WordPress setup page.

Log in to the admin dashboard at https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin with the credentials you set during the setup wizard.

You now have a fully functional website running on your own server with automatic HTTPS. The total cost is just the server (~$5-10/month) and domain (~$10-15/year).

10

Keep Your Site Running

WebsiteBox handles most maintenance automatically, but here are a few things to know:

Automatic updates: SSL certificates renew automatically. WordPress core updates can be enabled in the dashboard.

Backups: Set up automatic backups with:

Monitoring: Check your site status anytime with:

text

Type: A
Name: @
Value: your-server-ip
TTL: 300

text

Type: CNAME
Name: www
Value: yourdomain.com
TTL: 300

bash

curl -fsSL https://websitebox.dev/install.sh | bash

bash

websitebox setup

bash

websitebox activate

bash

websitebox backup --schedule daily

bash

websitebox status