5 ms·

For the last couple of years, you can just click an "Upgrade" link in your admin and it just upgrades itself painlessly. It also lets you know in the admin Das

by modoc 17y ago

For the last couple of years, you can just click an "Upgrade" link in your admin and it just upgrades itself painlessly. It also lets you know in the admin Dashboard when there's a new version out to upgrade to. Honestly it seems like they've gone out of their way to make it easy for self hosted users (like myself) to keep current.

jonknee 17y ago
If you're willing to allow FTP connections and create an account for WordPress to fix itself sure. But I'm not willing to support FTP and also not trusting that WP can't be hacked in a manner that will either then cough up my FTP details or download a hacker's copy of WP.
- buro9 17y ago
  You could just run it from SVN and periodically go in and upgrade. I host and keep 6 blogs up to date like this for friends and together with things like mod_security I've never had a problem with spam or being hacked. I realise this is just anecdotal and isolated, but an upgrade doesn't get much simpler than "svn up".
  - 9oliYQjP 17y ago
    I know people that use a similar approach (albeit) with git. Comments are hosted on Disqus so the entire site is essentially read-only. WPSuperCache is used on a staging server and the actual public-facing website serves up static pages that have been git pulled from the cache. The Apache process on the public-facing server only has read permissions to the public site files.
  - philfreo 17y ago
    Agreed. "svn up" and your site is updated - no FTP details need to be given away. And you can this to automatically install via SVN http://birdhouse.org/software/2008/04/wp-create/ http://birdhouse.org/software/2008/04/wp-create/ (and there's a similar script for updating all the sites at once)
- 9oliYQjP 17y ago
  You can upgrade WordPress automatically now without using FTP. It means that PHP has to execute with write permissions to the files involved however. Exacerbating this security risk, a lot of people run mod_php which means PHP executes as the apache user, thus giving write permissions to every other website on that server. They'll either chmod 777 or chown www-data (or apache) the wordpress folder/files. I personally use FastCGI+SUExec to ensure that WordPress' PHP code executes under a specific user account other than Apache's. It does not address the possibility of WordPress code itself somehow being hacked, but it does provide some sort of sandbox protection to the site. I'm not thrilled with WordPress' past security track record, but I think they have made it so easy to use that a lot of users simply throw the scripts up on a shared server without knowing exactly what they're doing so far as server configuration goes. I wonder how many WordPress blogs are exploited because of a stupid permission setup?
  - jonknee 17y ago
    How does it work without FTP? Last time I tried to upgrade it asked for the FTP u/p.
    - bugs 17y ago
      The same way installing plugins without ftp and writing config files; the files that need to be upgraded just need to be writable by the server.
    - 9oliYQjP 17y ago
      If it's asking for FTP details, the problem is that Apache does not have write permissions to the files. The UX is pretty bad in that it doesn't let you know that it doesn't have write permissions, it just ignores that fact and presents the FTP details. Here's where a lot of the security problems arise. As I mentioned, a lot of people are on a shared host and using mod_php. The only way they can make their files writable is to somehow give Apache write access to them. That opens up the possibility for other sites on the shared server to execute PHP that also writes to these files. If you're stuck in this position, I'd recommend as a hack/workaround, to temporarily chown the files to www-data/apache. Perform the upgrade, then change ownership of the files back. Ideally, if you're setting up your own server, I'd recommend FastCGI/SUExec: http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-set-up-apache2-with-mod_fcgid-and-php5-on-debian-lenny http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-set-up-apache2-with-mod_fcg... You have much finer-grained control over how your PHP can execute. Alternatively, although I have no experience with it, you could try suphp to achieve a similar effect but by sticking with mod_php.
axod 17y ago
You seem to have to give them an FTP login to your site to do this. Or am I missing something?
- edd 17y ago
  Or have the same user that runs php access to write to your webroot. This incurs other vulnerabilities though.
- modoc 17y ago
  No you don't. It upgrades in place by pulling down files and updating itself. And you don't need to let it write to your whole webroot, just to the wordpress install directory.

by modoc 17y ago

jonknee 17y ago

If you're willing to allow FTP connections and create an account for WordPress to fix itself sure. But I'm not willing to support FTP and also not trusting that WP can't be hacked in a manner that will either then cough up my FTP details or download a hacker's copy of WP.

buro9 17y ago
You could just run it from SVN and periodically go in and upgrade. I host and keep 6 blogs up to date like this for friends and together with things like mod_security I've never had a problem with spam or being hacked. I realise this is just anecdotal and isolated, but an upgrade doesn't get much simpler than "svn up".
- 9oliYQjP 17y ago
  I know people that use a similar approach (albeit) with git. Comments are hosted on Disqus so the entire site is essentially read-only. WPSuperCache is used on a staging server and the actual public-facing website serves up static pages that have been git pulled from the cache. The Apache process on the public-facing server only has read permissions to the public site files.
- philfreo 17y ago
  Agreed. "svn up" and your site is updated - no FTP details need to be given away. And you can this to automatically install via SVN http://birdhouse.org/software/2008/04/wp-create/ http://birdhouse.org/software/2008/04/wp-create/ (and there's a similar script for updating all the sites at once)
9oliYQjP 17y ago
You can upgrade WordPress automatically now without using FTP. It means that PHP has to execute with write permissions to the files involved however. Exacerbating this security risk, a lot of people run mod_php which means PHP executes as the apache user, thus giving write permissions to every other website on that server. They'll either chmod 777 or chown www-data (or apache) the wordpress folder/files. I personally use FastCGI+SUExec to ensure that WordPress' PHP code executes under a specific user account other than Apache's. It does not address the possibility of WordPress code itself somehow being hacked, but it does provide some sort of sandbox protection to the site. I'm not thrilled with WordPress' past security track record, but I think they have made it so easy to use that a lot of users simply throw the scripts up on a shared server without knowing exactly what they're doing so far as server configuration goes. I wonder how many WordPress blogs are exploited because of a stupid permission setup?
- jonknee 17y ago
  How does it work without FTP? Last time I tried to upgrade it asked for the FTP u/p.
  - bugs 17y ago
    The same way installing plugins without ftp and writing config files; the files that need to be upgraded just need to be writable by the server.
  - 9oliYQjP 17y ago
    If it's asking for FTP details, the problem is that Apache does not have write permissions to the files. The UX is pretty bad in that it doesn't let you know that it doesn't have write permissions, it just ignores that fact and presents the FTP details. Here's where a lot of the security problems arise. As I mentioned, a lot of people are on a shared host and using mod_php. The only way they can make their files writable is to somehow give Apache write access to them. That opens up the possibility for other sites on the shared server to execute PHP that also writes to these files. If you're stuck in this position, I'd recommend as a hack/workaround, to temporarily chown the files to www-data/apache. Perform the upgrade, then change ownership of the files back. Ideally, if you're setting up your own server, I'd recommend FastCGI/SUExec: http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-set-up-apache2-with-mod_fcgid-and-php5-on-debian-lenny http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-set-up-apache2-with-mod_fcg... You have much finer-grained control over how your PHP can execute. Alternatively, although I have no experience with it, you could try suphp to achieve a similar effect but by sticking with mod_php.

axod 17y ago

You seem to have to give them an FTP login to your site to do this. Or am I missing something?

edd 17y ago
Or have the same user that runs php access to write to your webroot. This incurs other vulnerabilities though.
modoc 17y ago
No you don't. It upgrades in place by pulling down files and updating itself. And you don't need to let it write to your whole webroot, just to the wordpress install directory.