WP Update

A bash script to update WordPress core, plugins, themes and comments via SSH.

See this screencast to see it in action.

Features:

• All updates are displayed before updating
• Interactive confirmation prompts keep you in control of what gets updated
• Database and file backups (plugins, themes) are created when updates are made
• Manage spam and trash comments
• WP-CLI does all the heavy lifting in the background
• Use a custom backup directory location for every site (or for all sites)

requirements:

• WP-CLI (1.3.0 or higher)

See the WP-CLI installation instructions if it's not installed . The command wp should be executable and in your PATH (e.g. /usr/local/bin/).

If you have permission issues or have trouble moving files in your PATH see this answer on stackoverflow.

Installation

1 log in your server via SSH and download the wp-update.sh file.

curl -o wp-update.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/keesiemeijer/wp-update/master/wp-update.sh

2 Make the wp-update.sh file executable.

chmod +x wp-update.sh

3 Move it in your PATH (e.g /usr/local/bin/) and rename it to wp-update.

mv wp-update.sh /usr/local/bin/wp-update

4 Run wp-update --help to see if the WP Update script was installed successfully. You should see something like this

Usage

wp-update <path/to/website> [option...]

Use a relative or full path to the WP site you want to update.

See all available options

Without options everything is updated. Example:

wp-update path/to/my/website

Example to update plugins and themes only:

wp-update path/to/my/website --plugins --themes

Note: After updating it's recommended you inspect your website.

Backups

Backups are only created when something is updated. Newer backups replace previous backups as not to clutter your website.

• The plugins and themes folder backups are made before updating plugins or themes.
• Database backups are created before and after updating.

Note: Test the database backups made by this script before you rely on this feature.

Backup Directory

The backup directory should not be publicly accessible.

That's why backups are saved outside the website path you provide in <path/to/website>. In most cases this will fix the public access issue.

Before updating a backup directory called wp-update-backups is created if it doesn't exist yet.

For example, if you've used this command:

wp-update domains/my-site

The backup directory is created at domains/wp-update-backups.

You can set a custom backup path for each site if there are permission issues or if the location is still publicly accessible.

Custom backup path (disabled for this fork)

Add custom backup paths with environment variables in your .bashrc or .bash_profile file.

Let's say you have a site directory my-awesome-site. Set the custom backup path for this site like this in your .bash_profile file.

export WP_UPDATE_BACKUP_PATH_my-awesome-site=/custom/path/to/backups/my-awesome-site

As you can see the environment variable consists of WP_UPDATE_BACKUP_PATH_ and the site directory my-awesome-site. The custom path that will be used for this site is now /custom/path/to/backups/my-awesome-site. It's recommended this directory is not publicly accessible. This directory must exist on your server for the path to be used.

After adding the custom backup path you'll need to quit the terminal and log back in to your server via SSH before the environment variable is used.