WordPress (Developer) App

About

This app is targeted at users who want to have complete control over their WordPress installation.

Features:

• The WordPress code can be modified. This means that you have to manage updates to WordPress yourself using WordPress' built-in updater.
• Custom Apache configuration via .htaccess
• Multisite support

If you prefer delegating the responsibility of applying updates to the Cloudron team, use the WordPress Managed app instead.

• Questions? Ask in the Cloudron Forum - WordPress (Developer)

Admin page

The WordPress admin page is located https://<my.example.com>/wp-login.php.

Using SFTP

The app can be uploaded using an SFTP client like FileZilla.

You can find the SFTP login details when clicking on the i icon in the app grid.

SFTP Access

SFTP access for non-admin users can be granted using the access control UI.

Memory limits

To adjust memory allocated for WordPress, edit /app/data/wp-config.php using the File manager and add the following line at the end of the file:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '128M');
define('WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');

Note that the app also has a separate memory limit controlled by the app's memory limit. If you increase WP_MEMORY_LIMIT, be sure to increase the app's memory limit. A good formula is to provide the app 6 times the WP_MEMORY_LIMIT value at the bare minimum.

WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT is the limit for administration tasks, which often require more.

A detailed explanation can be found in the WordPress docs.

Apache Config

Apache configuration can be tweaked using the htaccess mechanism. By default, the app does not have an .htaccess file. It can be added via SFTP or the File manager at /app/data/public/.htaccess. Like any other standard Apache setup, .htaccess can also be added on other WordPress subfolders in /app/data/public/ as needed.

Cron tasks

The app is configured to run WordPress cron tasks every minute.

To run the cron tasks manually run the following command using the Web terminal:

wp cron event run --due-now

WordPress' built-in cron task schedule wp-cron is disabled since it is not effective for low traffic websites.

To add custom cron events, use Cloudron's built-in cron or use a plugin like WP Crontrol.

Plugins

Unlike the Managed WordPress app, you can install plugins that modify the code.

Disabling plugin

If a plugin is preventing WordPress from starting, open the File manager. Navigate to /app/data/public/wp-content/plugins and rename the offending plugin directory from plugin-name to say plugin-name-broken.

Note that to enable it back, you have to not only rename the folder but also activate the plugin in the WordPress dashboard.

Disabling all plugins

To disable all plugins, rename /app/data/public/wp-content/plugins to /app/data/public/wp-content/plugins-broken using the File manager.

Note that to enable back all the plugins, you have to not only rename the folder but also activate the plugins in the WordPress dashboard.

Performance

GTmetrix is a great site for getting performance metrics on the WordPress installation.

• To set the expires headers for all pages, the WP Fastest Cache plugin can be installed.

• For CDN caching, we recommend WP Fastest Cache or W3 Total Cache for CDN based cache. Ryan Kite has a good tutorial on how to setup AWS Cloudfront with WP Fastest Cache.

Database access

Cloudron does not support PHPMyAdmin. It is, however, possible to access the database using other methods:

• Open a Web terminal and press the 'MySQL' button to get console access. You can execute SQL commands directly.

• Use a plugin like WP phpMyAdmin

WP CLI

WP CLI is a command line interface to WordPress. To run commands using the CLI tool, open a Web terminal and execute commands WP CLI using simply wp. It is pre-setup to run as the correct user already. For example:

wp user list

If one or more plugins/themes are erroring, you can make WP CLI skip loading plugins/themes as follows:

wp --skip-plugins --skip-themes

Additional php settings can be configured, when running the cli manually with php -d key=value:

sudo -E -u www-data php -d max_execution_time=100 /app/pkg/wp --path=/app/data/public/

In this case setting the maximum execution timeout to 100 seconds.

PHP settings

You can add custom PHP settings in /app/data/php.ini

File upload size

Change the following values in /app/data/php.ini:

post_max_size = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 256M
memory_limit = 256M

Migrating existing site

See our blog on how to migrate an existing WordPress site to Cloudron.

File editing

WordPress' built-in file editing functionality is enabled by default. For security reasons, we recommend that you turn this off by editing /app/data/wp-config.php and setting DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT to true.

define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);

Email

By default, the app is configured to use smtp-mailer plugin.

A custom mailer plugin can be used as follows:

• Disable Email Configuration in App -> Email -> Do not configure app's mail delivery settings. When disabled, Cloudron will not try to configure smtp-mailer on every restart.

• Install your preferred mailer plugin in WordPress.

• The email credentials depend on your setup. With an external mail relay like Mailgun/SES/Postmark, you can use those credentials directly in WordPress Alternately, you can create relay or mailbox credentials in your Email provider.

• When using Cloudron as your email server, simply create a mailbox and use an email app password. Use the server's SMTP configuration as the sending server. For further security, you can consider a separate Cloudron user that is the owner of the created mailbox (this way a bad plugin cannot access your personal mailboxes). Note the SMTP username is same as the mailbox address (and not the Cloudron username).

Fluent SMTP plugin configuration:

Unfiltered HTML

Non-admins are allowed to post unfiltered HTML content. You can disable this by editing /app/data/wp-config.php and setting DISALLOW_UNFILTERED_HTML to true.

define('DISALLOW_UNFILTERED_HTML', true);

Multisite

To multisite or not to multisite

WordPress multisite is a complex system with many compatibility gotchas. Unless you have a strong reason, we recommend installing a separate WordPress app for each site.

To enable WordPress multisite, start with a fresh installation and use the WordPress Network Setup Tool.

• Enable Multisite in /app/data/public/wp-config.php by adding the following line using the File manager. Add this line above the line that says "That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.":

/* Multisite */
define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );

• Go to Tools -> Network Setup in the WordPress dashboard. As instructed in that page, deactivate all the plugins before proceeding. Cloudron supports both sub-domain and sub-directory installation.

• Once you click install, you will see a message Warning! Wildcard DNS may not be configured correctly!. To fix this, go to the Location view of the Cloudron dashboard and configure a Wildcard alias. Once the alias has been added, the warning will disappear (you have to refresh the WordPress dashboard).

• To complete the network installation, add the following to /app/data/public/wp-config.php as instructed.

define('MULTISITE', true);
define('SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true);
define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'msite.cloudron.club');
define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/');
define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
define('BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);

Also, completely replace the contents of /app/data/public/.htaccess as instructed. Note that the Rewrite rules are slightly different for sub-domain and sub-directory setups. The config below is for sub-domain setup:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]

# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^wp-admin$ wp-admin/ [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
RewriteRule ^(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $1 [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*\.php)$ $1 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]

• You can add new sites from the Network Admin menu. You can add a site as a subdomain or subdirectory. The Site Address can be changed after addition by editing the site.

• If you set the Site Address to a different domain, you simply have to add it to the domain aliases in the Location section in Cloudron Dashboard.

Email Setup (Multisite)

In multisite mode, the SMTP mailer plugin can be configured per-site. After adding a site, restart the app for the package code to automatically configure the plugin.