WordPress Toolkit

The WordPress Toolkit, found in your cPanel, gives you an easy-to-read dashboard that allows you to manage all of your WordPress installs. From here, you can see if your installations, plugins, and themes are up-to-date. Keeping your WordPress up to date is the best protection against hacks.

You can also use the toolkit to create back ups and staging sites to help maintain your WordPress websites. Whether you have many WordPress sites, or even only the one, the WordPress Toolkit can help keep you safe and organized.

Here is a quick guide on the WordPress Toolkit and how to use it.

Accessing the WordPress Toolkit

The WordPress Toolkit can be found in your cPanel account. To access the toolkit, first you will need to log into your cPanel. You can find a guide on how to access your cPanel here.

Once you are logged into your cPanel, scroll down to the Domains section and click on the WordPress Toolkit app.

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The WordPress Toolkit Homepage

Now that you have loaded your WordPress Toolkit, you will be at the apps homepage. This page will look different, depending on whether you already have any WordPress websites set up in the app.

cPanel WordPress Toolkit

If you do not have any WordPress sites set up in your WordPress Toolkit, you will see the wizard that will allow you to either create a new WordPress site, or scan for an existing WordPress site to import. Importing your existing WordPress site will allow you to manage your site in the WordPress Toolkit, even if you did not build it with this tool.

Click the Install WordPress button to begin creating your WordPress installation. This will open the WordPress installation wizard.

If you already have a WordPress installation, clicking on the Scan button will have the app search your folders for WordPress installations. If it finds any, it will add it to your list of WordPress sites.

cPanel WordPress Toolkit

Once you have either scanned and imported a WordPress site, or created a new one, this page will show you a summery of all of your WordPress sites. From here, you will be able to manage your WordPress installations.

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Creating a WordPress Site

Clicking on either the Install or Install WordPress buttons will start the WordPress installation wizard. This will guide you through the steps of creating your new site. The script will take care of downloading the files and creating the database for you.

cPanel WordPress Toolkit

This section is divided into four sections, with two hidden by default. While you will need to edit the information in the first two sections, you can leave the other two at their default settings. You will be able to customize any of these settings later if desired.

General

Here is where you will set up your new website address and location. You can also give your new site a Title, or use a temporary one that the script will generate for you.

You can also choose your Plugin set (in you set any up yet), your default language and your WordPress version.

cPanel WordPress Toolkit

  • select whether to use HTTP (non-encrypted) or HTTPS (encrypted)
    • encrypted is recommended, but will require an SSL certificate.
  • choose the domain for which you wish to install WordPress
    • select your domain or subdomain from the drop down box.
  • enter the subfolder in which you wish to install WordPress
    • if you wish to install your site in the document root for the domain, leave the Installation Directory field blank

  • set the name of your WordPress site
    • the script will generate a random one for you by default
    • you can always update it later

  • choose from any of the common plugin/theme sets that are included with the WordPress Toolkit
    • you can add or remove themes and plugins later as needed
    • you can create your own plugin/theme sets using this tool

  • set the default language of your WordPress site

  • choose what version of WordPress you would like to install
    • it is recommended to use the newest version at all times

WordPress Administrator

In this section you will set up your WordPress Administrator account. This account will have access to your entire WordPress installations, so it is VERY important that this account remains safe and secure.

cPanel WordPress Toolkit Admin

  • choose a username for your admin account
  • DO NOT use admin as your username, you WILL get hacked

  • you can enter your preferred password, or use the password generator to create a secure password for you
  • be sure to copy the password and store it safely

  • ensure that your email address entered here is an active email address, as it will be used for security warnings and notifications, as well as password reset requests

Database

Here, you can customize the setting of your WordPress database. These options are completely optional, as the script will create secure, randomized credentials for you.

cPanel WordPress Toolkit Database

  • set the name of the WordPress database

  • each table in your database till start with this string

  • choose your database user name

  • create a secure password for your database
  • as you should never need this password, it is best to use the password generator

Automatic Update Settings

In this section, you will be able to customize your automatic updates, if you choose to use them.

While allowing the script to keep your site up-to-date can definitely help keep your site safe and secure, it can cause your site to break if any of your plugins or your theme becomes incompatible with the new version. If you use a lot of plugins, or any older or custom ones, you may want to turn this option off. This will mean that it will be up to you to check your site from time to time to ensure that it remains active and safe.

cPanel WordPress Toolkit Auto Updates

In this section, you can choose whether the WordPress Toolkit will automatically update your WordPress installation. You can also choose whether to update only minor versions, or all versions.

  •  No
    • For example, neither 4.7.1 nor 4.8 will be automatically installed
  • Yes, but only minor (security) updates
    • For example, automatically install 4.7.1 but not 4.8
  • Yes, all (minor and major) updates
    • For example, automatically install 4.7.1 and 4.8

In this section, you can choose how automatic updates are applied to your plugins. You can choose whether each plugin will follow it’s own autoupdate settings, whether the toolkit will force only security updates, or if the toolkit will force all plugins to update.

There is also an option to enable autoupdate to all new plugins by default.

  • Defined individually
  • Each plugin uses its own autoupdate settings
    • Enable autoupdates by default for new plugins installed via WordPress Toolkit
  • Defined individually, but security updates are autoinstalled
  • Each plugin uses its own autoupdate settings, but vulnerable plugins will be updated automatically regardless of their settings
    • Enable autoupdates by default for new plugins installed via WordPress Toolkit
    • Deactivate vulnerable plugins instead of updating them
  • Forced
  • All plugins will be forcefully autoupdated regardless of their individual autoupdate settings
    • Deactivate vulnerable plugins instead of updating them

These are basically the same options as the plugins options, but for managing your theme autoupdate settings.

  • Defined individually
  • Each theme uses its own autoupdate settings
    • Enable autoupdates by default for new themes installed via WordPress Toolkit
  • Defined individually, but security updates are autoinstalled
  • Each theme uses its own autoupdate settings, but vulnerable themes will be updated automatically regardless of their settings
    • Enable autoupdates by default for new themes installed via WordPress Toolkit
  • Forced
    • All themes will be forcefully autoupdated regardless of their individual autoupdate settings

Once you have all of your options selected and entered, you can now click Install. The script will now create the database and install your WordPress site in the chosen folder. Once the installation completes, you will have the option to go directly to the plugin installation section, or you can go back to the summery screen.

Congratulations!! You now have a WordPress website. Now you can start adding your theme, plugins and start building your site.

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Managing Your WordPress Sites

Now that you have your WordPress site created or imported to the toolkit, you can use this interface to manage your sites. From here, you can add, remove or update your themes, plugins and your WordPress installation. There are also several other management options available at the summery page.

WordPress Toolkit Example

There is a lot of information on this page, as well as many management options, so we will divide it up into sections. There are also four tabs that also contain many options.

Top menu bar

WordPress Toolkit menu bar

Along the top, you will see the main menu bar. This is what shows when you have the site hidden from the summery view, but contains several controls.

From left to right, you have:

  • a selection box, for bulk options

  • the location of the WordPress site, including domain and subfolder

  • a link to the WordPress site (Open)

  • an option to add a label to the installation
    • useful for organization if you have many sites installed

  • a warning of any site issues or outdated plugins or themes

  • view the log file for the installation

  • open the cPanel File Manager to the site document root

  • reload the summery to ensure information is up to date

  • Check updates
  • Check Security
  • Update Site URL
  • Detach
    • remove site from the toolkit, but do not delete it
  • Remove
    • delete the site files and database

Left side bar

WordPress Toolkit side bar

The side bar contains a thumbnail of your websites home page, as well as links to Log In to the WordPress back end, or Setup the admin account.

You will also see the account owner and the domain.

Main section

This section contains the bulk of the management options for your WordPress site. This section has the Site Title at the top, that you can edit from this field, and four tabs worth of options.

Main section tabs

Along the top of this tab, you will see several site management options.

  • File Manager
    • link to your cPanel File Manager
  • Copy Data
    • use this to copy this installation to another installation in your WordPress Toolkit
  • Clone
    • create a copy of the installation and install it in a subdomain
    • great for creating a staging site
  • Back Up / Restore
    • create a backup of the WordPress site or restore from a previously created backup
  • Logs
    • view the installation logs

We will provide more information on these options below.

Status

In this section, you will see a run down of your website status

  • WordPress
    • your WordPress version
  • Plugins
    • the status of your plugins
  • Themes
    • the status of your installed themes
  • Security
    • any security issues present
  • PHP
    • your server PHP version
  • SSL/TLS
    • the currently installed SSL certificate issuer

Tools

These are some advanced tools for managing your site

  • Search engine indexing
    • if your site is not completed yet, disable this to stop search engines from indexing your site
  • Debugging
    • enables debugging messages on your WordPress site
    • debugging is disabled by default
  • Take over wp-cron.php
    • advanced option to control the WordPress cron
  • Enable hotlink protection
    • enable to prevent other sites from displaying, linking or embedding your files (usually images)
    • enable if you are having bandwidth issues

In this tab, you can manage all of your WordPress plugins.

In a glance, you can see if your plugins are out of date and can set them to Autoupdate.

Each plugin will show a toggle as to its Active state, Autoupdate state, a link to force update the plugin and the option to delete the plugin.

Keeping your plugins up to date is the best defense against security threats.

 
WordPress Toolkit Themes

In this tab, you can manage all of your installed Themes.

You will see a list of all of your currently installed themes with an option to set them to active (you can only have one active at a time), toggle the AutoUpdate status, force update or delete the theme.

You can also install new themes by clicking on the + Install button,

cPanel WordPress Toolkit Database

Here, you can update your database settings for your WordPress installation. The only time you would need to update this is if you suspect your database has been compromised.

You can also update your username and table prefix. Again, you most likely will never need to do this.

Bottom menu bar

Finally, at the bottom of this section, you will see the bottom menu bar. Here you will see more links and options.

WordPress Toolkit Example

This link will check for updates to your WordPress installation, including plugins and themes. You can then decide which to update or you can update them all by clicking Update at the bottom of the screen.

You can also toggle Smart Update in the upper right-hand side of the page. This is described further in the Smart Update section.

This will open the Autoupdate settings section, where you can choose what parts of your website will auto update. It is the same section that is described above.

Smart Update is a powerful tool when it comes to keeping your website safe and secure. The main reason you may be hesitant to update your WordPress to update automatically is because updates can potentially break your website. Unfortunately, this is becoming a common thing with all software updates. But what if you could test the updates before applying them?

This is what Smart Update does for you. Running the Smart Update script will create a clone of your site first, before applying the updates. Once the clone is created, the chosen updates are applied to the clone.The script will then preform some tests on the cloned site to ensure there are no issues. You can even review the cloned site and check the results of the updates yourself. If you are happy with the results, you can then decide to apply the updates.

Once you apply the updates, and it is no longer needed, the system will clean up and remove the cloned site.

This option will check your WordPress installation files against the known files found on WordPress.org to ensure that there were no modifications to your installation files. You should do this if you suspect that your WordPress site was compromised. This is done by clicking on Verify Checksums. If you find that your files have been altered, you can click Reinstall WordPress Core to install fresh WordPress files. This should not affect your current website, however, it may be a good idea to create a backup of your site first.

This toggle will temporarily disable your site from being viewed from the public. There are many reasons that you may want to enable this, such as being in the middle of a major update. Your customers will see a page stating the the site is down for scheduled maintenance.

Clicking on the icon to the right of the help icon will bring up the Maintenance Mode options.

  • Template
    • customize the maintenance page
  • Screen Text
    • customize your message
  • Timer
    • schedule how long the maintenance will last
  • Social Media Links
    • link your social media so your customers can still contact you

Once you have all of your options selected and entered, you can now click Install. The script will now create the database and install your WordPress site in the chosen folder. Once the installation completes, you will have the option to go directly to the plugin installation section, or you can go back to the summery screen.

Congratulations!! You now have a WordPress website. Now you can start adding your theme, plugins and start building your site.

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Contact our Support Team

If you are still having issues, and need further support, please reach out to our support team using any of these methods.

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