Easy Digital Downloads

Option A: Azure Portal

• Choose Create a resource and search the Marketplace for this SecureAnyCloud offer
• Select the plan and choose Create
• Pick your subscription, resource group and region
• Set the VM size to Standard_B2s
• Set the authentication type to SSH public key and the username to azureuser
• On the Networking tab, allow inbound SSH (22) and HTTP (80)
• Select Review + create, then Create

Option B: Azure CLI

az vm image terms accept --urn sac1647283583153:easy-digital-downloads-ubuntu-24-04:default:latest
az vm create \
  --resource-group my-resource-group \
  --name my-edd-vm \
  --image sac1647283583153:easy-digital-downloads-ubuntu-24-04:default:latest \
  --size Standard_B2s \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys \
  --public-ip-sku Standard \
  --location eastus

From your own workstation, look up the instance's public IP address and connect to it:

az vm show --resource-group my-resource-group --name my-edd-vm \
  --show-details --query publicIps --output tsv ssh azureuser@<vm-ip>

Confirm that both services are running and listening:

sudo systemctl is-active apache2 mysql
sudo ss -tln | grep -E ':80 |:3306 '

Check the version of each component:

apache2 -v | head -1 php -v | head -1 mysql --version

Confirm WordPress and Easy Digital Downloads are installed and the plugin is active:

sudo -u www-data wp core version --path=/var/www/html/wordpress sudo -u www-data wp plugin list --path=/var/www/html/wordpress --fields=name,status,version

The image ships WordPress 7.0.4. WordPress's own automatic updates are left at their defaults, so WordPress installs new releases by itself. On an instance that has been running for a while, wp core version may report a newer release.

Easy Digital Downloads, other plugins and themes are updated when you choose (see Security Recommendations).

Every credential on this instance is generated on first boot and written to a file that only root can read. Nothing is shared between instances, and nothing is baked into the image.

sudo cat /stage/scripts/easy-digital-downloads-credentials.log

The file contains these keys:

• EDD_URL: the public storefront address
• EDD_ADMIN_URL: the WordPress admin sign-in address
• EDD_DOWNLOADS_URL: a direct link to your digital products list
• WP_ADMIN_USER: the store administrator username (SecureAnyCloud)
• WP_ADMIN_PASSWORD: the store administrator password, unique to this instance
• WP_DB_NAME, WP_DB_USER, WP_DB_PASSWORD: the WordPress database and its account
• MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: the MySQL root password, unique to this instance

Confirm that the first-boot service completed and that the file is protected:

sudo systemctl is-active easy-digital-downloads-firstboot.service
sudo ls -l /stage/scripts/easy-digital-downloads-credentials.log
sudo ls -l /var/lib/sac/data/easy-digital-downloads-firstboot.done

Browse to http://<vm-ip>/wp-admin/ and sign in as SecureAnyCloud with the WP_ADMIN_PASSWORD from Step 4.

You land on the WordPress dashboard. Easy Digital Downloads adds the Downloads and Store Reports entries to the left menu.

The image derives its site address from the host you browse it on. The storefront therefore works on the public IP straight away, and it keeps working unchanged if you later point a domain name at the instance.

Choose Downloads in the left menu. This is your product catalog. A newly deployed store is empty. Every product you add appears here with its price, categories, net sales and net revenue.

Easy Digital Downloads creates its store pages when it activates, which happens on first boot. Confirm that they exist:

sudo -u www-data wp post list --post_type=page --path=/var/www/html/wordpress --fields=post_title,post_name --format=table

In the admin, choose Downloads, then Add Download. Give the product a name and set a price in the Download Prices panel. Attach the file the customer receives in the Download Files panel, and publish the product when you are ready to sell.

You can also create a product from the command line, which is useful for bulk imports and automation:

sudo -u www-data wp post create --post_type=download \
  --post_title='Starter Icon Pack' --post_status=publish \
  --path=/var/www/html/wordpress sudo -u www-data wp post list --post_type=download --path=/var/www/html/wordpress --fields=ID,post_title,post_status

Files attached to a product are delivered through Easy Digital Downloads rather than served directly, so a customer cannot share a working download URL with someone who has not paid.

Choose Downloads, then Settings. Set your store country, your currency and the payment gateways you want to accept.

The core plugin supports Stripe and PayPal. Test mode lets you place an order end to end before you take real money.

Choose Downloads, then Reports, to track sales, earnings, average order value, refunds, taxes and file downloads over any date range.

Browse to http://<vm-ip>/ to see the storefront your customers will use.

Confirm that both the storefront and the sign-in page answer:

curl -sf -o /dev/null -w 'storefront: HTTP %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/
curl -sf -o /dev/null -w 'sign in: HTTP %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/wp-login.php

Sign in to the AWS Management Console, open the EC2 service, and select Launch instance. Under Application and OS Images, choose AWS Marketplace AMIs and search for Easy Digital Downloads. Select the SecureAnyCloud listing and choose Select, then Continue on the subscription summary.

Pick an instance type of m5.large or larger. Choose your EC2 key pair under Key pair (login). Under Network settings, select your VPC and subnet, then create or select a security group that opens port 22 from your management network and port 80 for the storefront and admin.

Leave the root volume at the default size or larger. The database and web volumes are attached automatically.

Select Launch instance. First-boot initialization takes a short time after the instance state becomes Running and the status checks pass. During that time the database is created, WordPress is installed, Easy Digital Downloads is activated and the per-instance administrator is provisioned.

The following command launches an instance from the SecureAnyCloud Easy Digital Downloads Marketplace AMI into an existing subnet and security group.

Replace the AMI ID with the one shown on the Marketplace listing, and the key name with your EC2 key pair name. Replace the subnet ID with your subnet ID, and the security group ID with a security group that opens ports 22 and 80 as described above.

aws ec2 run-instances \
  --image-id <ami-id> \
  --instance-type m5.large \
  --key-name <key-name> \
  --subnet-id <subnet-id> \
  --security-group-ids <security-group-id> \
  --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=easy-digital-downloads}]'

When the instance reaches the Running state and its status checks pass, note its public IP address or DNS name from the EC2 console or with aws ec2 describe-instances.

Connect over SSH with your key pair and the login user for your operating system variant. For the Ubuntu 24.04 variant, the SSH login user is ubuntu.

ssh -i <key-name>.pem ubuntu@<instance-public-ip>

The WordPress administrator password is unique to your instance and was generated on first boot. Read it as root:

sudo cat /stage/scripts/easy-digital-downloads-credentials.log

The file lists the storefront URL, the WordPress admin URL, the administrator login name (SecureAnyCloud) and the generated password. It also lists the database name, the database user and the generated database passwords. Keep this file somewhere safe.

Over SSH, confirm that the web server and the database are active, that the expected ports are listening, and that WordPress and the plugin are the expected versions:

for s in apache2 mysql; do echo "$s: $(systemctl is-active $s)"; done
sudo ss -tln | grep -E ':80|:3306'
sudo -u www-data wp core version --path=/var/www/html/wordpress sudo -u www-data wp plugin get easy-digital-downloads --field=version --path=/var/www/html/wordpress

You should see both services active, ports 80 and 3306 listening, WordPress version 7.0.2 and Easy Digital Downloads version 3.6.9.

Then confirm that the storefront, the WordPress login and the store pages answer with HTTP 200:

curl -s -o /dev/null -w 'home: %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/
curl -s -o /dev/null -w 'login: %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/wp-login.php
curl -s -o /dev/null -w 'products: %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/products/
curl -s -o /dev/null -w 'checkout: %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/checkout/

Apache serves the storefront and the WordPress admin on port 80. In a browser, open the admin sign-in page:

http://<instance-public-ip>/wp-admin/

Sign in with the administrator login name SecureAnyCloud and the password from the credentials file. From the admin you manage downloadable products, orders, customers, discounts and reports.

In the WordPress admin, open Downloads and choose Add Download. Give the product a name and description and set its price. Under Download Files, upload the file customers receive after purchase. Publish the product and it appears in your storefront.

Easy Digital Downloads delivers each purchased file through a signed, expiring link, so paid files cannot be shared by URL.

Configure payment gateways, tax, email receipts and discount codes under Downloads -> Settings. Read sales and earnings figures under Downloads -> Reports.

Customers browse the storefront at the site root and on the Products page, add products to their cart and check out. The storefront is an ordinary WordPress site, so you can style it with any WordPress theme and extend it with the Easy Digital Downloads add-on catalog.

At checkout, the customer reviews the cart and enters their details. They then complete the purchase and receive their downloads.

The MySQL database lives on a dedicated EBS volume mounted at /var/lib/mysql. The WordPress code and uploaded product files live on a second dedicated EBS volume mounted at /var/www. Both are kept off the operating system disk and are independently resizable.

Confirm the layout:

findmnt /var/lib/mysql
findmnt /var/www df -h /var/lib/mysql /var/www

To grow either tier, resize the EBS volume in the AWS console, then grow the filesystem on the instance. The fstab entries reference the filesystem UUID, so the layout persists across reboots and instance replacement.

The site derives its address from the request host. Point a DNS name at the instance and the storefront answers on it immediately, with no WordPress reconfiguration.

To serve the site over HTTPS, install a certificate with Certbot for Apache once your domain resolves to the instance:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y certbot python3-certbot-apache
sudo certbot --apache -d your-domain.example

Certbot obtains and installs the certificate and configures Apache to redirect HTTP to HTTPS. Renewals run automatically.

Back up the MySQL database regularly. A logical dump of the WordPress database is the simplest approach and can be scheduled with cron:

sudo mysqldump --single-transaction edd > /var/backups/edd-$(date +%F).sql

Also back up /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/uploads, which holds the delivered digital product files. For a full point-in-time copy, take EBS snapshots of the /var/lib/mysql and /var/www volumes.

Keep the operating system patched with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. Update WordPress core and the Easy Digital Downloads plugin from the WordPress admin.