Difference between revisions of "WordPress Toolkit"

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WordPress Toolkit

XMission’s Shared Hosting Platform has the WordPress Toolkit enabled on all our servers. This Toolkit is a single management interface that allows you to easily install, configure, and manage your WordPress Development.

Installing WordPress

To install a new WordPress instance, go to WordPress and click Install. The following installation options are available:

• Install (Quick). This will install the newest version of WordPress, and use WordPress default settings. The new instance will be available via HTTPS for each domain as SSL Protection is become required for all hosting.
• Install (Custom) (XMission recommends using this option). This allows you to set up the administrator user, select the desired WordPress version, HTTP/HTTPS, specify the database name, select auto-update settings, and more.

To view a list of all installations attached to the WordPress Toolkit, go to Websites & Domains > WordPress.

Managing WordPress Instances

Go to WordPress to see all WordPress instances hosted on the server. WordPress Toolkit groups information about each instance in a card.

The individual cards will contain a screenshot and a number of controls that give you easy access to frequently used tools. The screenshot is real time and should reflect the current home page of your website. If you click the screenshot of the website, the Open Site button appears. Click the button to open the website in a new browser tab.

Security

WordPress development is frequently attacked by hackers. To help prevent compromises the Toolkit analyzes how safe your instance is. After analyzing your site you’ll be able to see the result below the screenshot of the website:

If you see “warning” or “danger” next to one of these aspects, click “View” and fix it.

General Information

In the “General Info” section, you see the WordPress website’s title and its WordPress version. Here you can:

• Click “Change” next to the default “My CMS” title to give your website a custom name.
• Click “Log in” to log in to WordPress as an administrator.
• Click “Setup” next to “Log in” to change general WordPress settings.

Tools

In the “Tools” section, click to access the following WordPress Toolkit features:

• Sync to synchronize the content of your website with another one.
• Clone to make a full copy of your website.
• Manage Files to manage the website’s files in File Manager.
• Back Up/Restore to create a backup of your website and restore it if necessary.

The controls below give you easy access to the following settings and tools:

• Search engine indexing shows your website in search results of search engines.
• Caching (nginx) speeds up the website load time and reduces server load.
• Debugging helps you debug a website that is not ready for viewing and being tested or developed.
• Maintenance mode hides your website’s content from visitors.
• Password Protection specifies the password you will use to log in to WordPress from Plesk.
• On the remaining three tabs you can manage the instance’s plugins, themes, and change the database username and password.

Removing and Detaching Instances

You can detach a synced WordPress instances that you do not want to manage in WordPress Toolkit. Detaching does not remove the instance, merely hides it from WordPress Toolkit.

• A detached instance will be attached to WordPress Toolkit again after you scan for WordPress instances.
• You can detach WordPress instances individually or multiple instances at a time.

To detach WordPress instances

1. To to WordPress, choose one or more instances you want to detach, and then click the button (to detach an individual instance) or click Detach (to detach multiple instances).
2. Click Detach.

To remove WordPress instances

1. Go to WordPress, choose one or more instances you want to delete, and then click the button (to remove an individual instance) or click Remove (to remove multiple instances).
2. Click Remove.

   Unlike detaching, removing completely deletes a WordPress instance. You can remove WordPress instances individually or multiple instances at a time.

Search Engine Indexing and Debugging

By default, a WordPress website is shown in search engines. If your website is not yet ready for public viewing, switch off Search engine indexing.

If you are installing WordPress for testing or development, you can enable Debugging to automatically find and fix errors in the website code. To do so:

• Click "Setup" next to “Debugging”
• Select the WordPress debugging tools you want to activate
• Click OK.

Managing WordPress

To keep your website secure, you need to regularly update the WordPress core, as well as any installed plugins and themes.

Updating WordPress Instances

You can do this either automatically or manually

• Manual updates give you control over when updates are installed. For example, you can wait and see if installing a particular update caused issues for other WordPress users. However, you need to remember to update regularly to avoid falling behind.
• Automatic updates give you peace of mind by keeping your WordPress instance up-to-date. However, updates can sometimes break your instance, and with automatic updates, you may not learn about it right away.

For security reasons, we recommend that you configure automatic updates.

Manually update WordPress

1. Go to WordPress. If your WordPress instance needs updating, you will see “available” next to “Updates” (below the website screenshot).
2. Click “View” next to “Updates”, wait for WordPress Toolkit to load the list of available updates, and then select the updates you want to install.

   Note: If an update of a WordPress core is available, you will see the “Restore Point” checkbox. Keep this checkbox selected to create a restore point you can use to roll back the update if something goes wrong.

   

3. Select your updates and Click Update.

Automatic update WordPress

1. Go to WordPress and choose the WordPress instance that you want to update automatically.
2. Click “View” next to “Updates”, and then click “Settings”.
3. Choose the desired automatic update settings. You can configure automatic updates separately for WordPress core, plugins, and themes (for example, you can choose to enable automatic updates for plugins and themes, but not for WordPress core). Follow these recommendations:

   • Selecting “No” next to “Update WordPress automatically” turns off automatic updates of WordPress core. This is insecure.
   • If your website is publicly available (production) and you are concerned that applying updates automatically may break it, select “Yes, but only minor (security) updates”.
   • If your website is a non-public (staging) version of a WordPress website, select “Yes, all (minor and major) updates”. This will keep your staging website up-to-date and ensure that, should an update break something, it happens to the staging website and not to the production one.

4. Click OK.

WordPress Themes and Plugins

A WordPress plugin is a type of third-party software that adds new functionality to WordPress. With WordPress Toolkit, you can install and manage plugins on one or more WordPress instances.

Installing Themes and Plugins

WordPress Toolkit, allows you to install themes and plugins on one or more WordPress Instances.

You can search for and install themes and plugins found in the wordpress.org plugins repository. You can also upload custom plugins, which is useful if:

• You cannot find a suitable plugin in the wordpress.org repository.
• You need to install your own plugin.

Note that any plugins you upload become available for installation by customers.

To install plugins on a particular WordPress instance:

1. Go to WordPress, go to the “Plugins” tab of an instance card, and then click Install.

   

2. Search for plugins, and then click Install next to the plugin you want to install. Installed plugins are activated immediately.

Upload a theme or plugin

1. Go to WordPress > The appropriate tab, and then click “Upload”.
2. Click Choose File and browse to the location of the ZIP file you want to upload.
3. Click Upload.

Activate Theme and Plugins

1. Go to WordPress > The appropriate tab, and then click Install.
2. Search for themes or plugins, and then select what you want to install.

   Note:Selecting one or more and then performing a new search without installing the selected plugins resets the selection.

3. By default, newly installed plugins are activated immediately. You can prevent this by clearing the “Activate after installation” checkbox.
4. Click Install on all ... instances.

Removing Themes and Plugins

You can remove themes and plugins from a particular instance or from all instances hosted on the server.

1. Go to WordPress, and then go to the appropriate tab of an instance card.
2. To remove, click the X icon next to it. To remove several items, select them and click Remove.
3. Click Yes.

Updating Themes and Plugins

If a plugin needs updating, you will see “Updates” next to the plugin on the “Plugins” tab of an instance card.

You can do the following:

• Update plugins for one particular instance.
• Update plugins installed on multiple instances.
• Configure automatic updates for plugins.

To Update

1. Go to WordPress > the appropriate tab.
2. Click Update to version … next to the plugin you want to update. To learn more about the update, click View Details. This will take you to the plugin's page on wordpress.org.

   Note: Before updating the plugin, WordPress Toolkit prompts you to back up your subscription. If you are concerned that the update may break your website, create a backup or use Auto-Updates.

3. Click Yes