Keeping your WordPress installations up to date is critical for the security and functionality of your site.
All Vacares servers come with Softaculous, an auto-installer that helps keep your plugins and themes updated automatically. You can also update plugins and themes manually from your WordPress admin dashboard.
If your WordPress install isn’t in Softaculous yet, see our support guide for how to import it.
Setting Softaculous to Auto-Update
- Log in to DirectAdmin.
- Navigate to the appropriate user account.
- Under the Addons and Plugins menu click on Softaculous Auto Installer.
- Click on the icon for WordPress, or use the search bar in the top left corner to find it.
- At the bottom of the WordPress page you will see a list of installations. Find the installation that you want to update, then click on the pencil icon under “Options”.
- In the middle of this page you will see the settings for Auto-Upgrading. Select your desired auto-upgrade settings, and be sure to check the boxes to upgrade plugins and themes.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Save Installation Details” to save your settings.
- Softaculous can only auto-update plugins and themes when there is a core update to do as well. However, Softaculous also makes it easy to manually update these plugins and themes between core updates.
Manually Updating Plugins and Themes
When you have a plugin or theme that needs to be updated between core WordPress updates, you can easily update them manually from within Softaculous.
Follow the steps above to navigate to the edit page of your WordPress installation in Softaculous.
On the lines where you enabled auto-updates, click the buttons for “Update Plugin(s) Now” or “Update Theme Now”.
You will see a confirmation when the plugin(s) or theme have been updated.