We have created a one-click Drupal installation which uses Nginx, php-fpm, and MySQL on Ubuntu 14.04 x64. Enhancements like enabling the PHP 5.5 opcode cache, use of php-fpm and Nginx ensure solid performance.

Step One — Create a Drupal Image

To start using it, create a Droplet and specify the hostname, size, and region. It’s recommended that you run Drupal on a 1GB server or higher.

Next, select “Drupal 7 on Ubuntu 14.04” from the Applications tab:

If you use SSH keys to manage your droplets, which are more secure than passwords and are recommended, you can also specify which ones you want added to this server.

Step Two — Access Your Drupal Credentials

Once your server has been spun up, you will be able to access the Drupal installation from your IP address. However, in order to log into the installation itself, you will need to access your randomly generated drupal password.

You can access the password by logging into your drupal server with the following command:

ssh root@your_ip_address

If you are prompted for a password, type in the password that was emailed to you when the server was created. Alternately, if you set up the droplet with SSH keys, you can go ahead and log in without the need for a password.

Once you are logged in, you will see the message of the day which contains your drupal password. It will look something like this:

Having found your Drupal credentials from the Message of the Day, you can access your drupal installation by going to your IP address in your browser.

Step Three (optional)— Get Started with Drush

The DigitalOcean Drupal Image comes with Drush preinstalled. Drush is a command-line interface specifically made for dealing with Drupal, providing a much faster management experience.

You can use Drush from within the drupal directory on your server, by logging into your droplet and then moving to the drupal directory itself.

You can do this with the following coomand:

cd /var/www/html/drupal

You can see some available Drush commands by then simply typing:

drush

You can learn more about using Drush with our Beginner's Guide To Drush Tutorial

Debugging

In the event you need to restart the Nginx web server or PHP itself, you can run the following commands, respectively:

• /etc/init.d/nginx restart
• /etc/init.d/php5-fpm restart