How To Install CLI For WordPress

The WP-CLI is a very diverse toolset that can be installed at the command line for managing WordPress websites. If you’re familiar with using such tools at the command line level then the information to follow should be relatively easy. However, if this is not something you’ve done before then we hope this helps you learn.

Installation

A command line interface can save so much time, automate tasks, and make mass management of sites much easier for any software, and WordPress is no exception. If you have any older template, or one from a hosting provider other than Knownhost that lacks wp-cli, you can use the following instructions to install it. To install this CLI for WordPress, start by grabbing the package from Github:

  cd /opt
  curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar

Check the Phar file to verify that it’s working before proceeding further:

  php wp-cli.phar --info

At this point, you should have the following output in your terminal:

Most WP-CLI guides you encounter will use WP-CLi via the ‘wp’ command, so it is best to stay consistent with this common practice. Let’s configure this with the following commands:

  chmod +x wp-cli.phar
  mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp

To confirm that WP-CLI was installed successfully, run wp –info again:

  wp --info

You should see the following output after these steps:

Using as Root

Don’t run WP-CLi as root when working with your applications! This is a security issue, and WP-CLI warns against this:

Additional Directions for CageFS users

Now, as you have installed wp-cli, let’s add it to the CageFS so that users could access it

Create the file /etc/cagefs/conf.d/wpcli.cfg and add the following content to it:

  [wpcli]
  comment=WP-CLI
  paths=/usr/local/bin/wp

Update CageFS

  cagefsctl --force-update

To test, run WP-CLi as a CageFS user (replace $username below with a CageFS user):

  su -c "wp --info" $username

Managing WordPress with WP-CLI

To use WP-CLI, su to your WordPress user first (they will need shell privileges), change into the directory containing the WordPress installation, and issue the desired commands. There is so much you can do with WP-CLI, such as manage plugins, make database backups, update WordPress core, verify WordPress core files against the current repository (useful for identifying malicious code injections in WordPress core files), manage themes, create posts, and more!

Common tasks/commands are as follows:

Here is a quick overview of the WP-CLi commands accessible to you through WP-CLI via WP-CLI Commands :

Managing WordPress Plugins with WP-CLI

You may even find your favorite plugins support WP-CLI. Some examples are given below.

LSCache

One common example of this you may find useful is LSCache management via WP-CLI. A few of the more popular commands for the LSCache plugin are below:

Updraft

Here are some of the options available for another popular favorite, Updraft.

WP-Optimize

Below you will find many of the options available to WP-Optimize.

Many other plugins offer WP-CLI integration, such as Jetpack, Redis-Cache, PHP Compatibility Checker, Google Sitemap Generator, iThemes Security, BackupBuddy, and many, many more! You can even add WP-CLI support to your own plugin.

WP-CLI Addons

There are some popular addons for WP-CLI that many find useful. These are WP Doctor and WP Profile. WP Profile is helpful for profiling a site to determine what is slowing it down and for finding those bottlenecks. WP DOCTOR is especially useful for exploited sites as it contains the following helpful functions:

WP Doctor also offers the following functions to assist with optimization:

WP Doctor can be downloaded here: wp-cli Doctor Command

WP Doctor installation is as follows (you may need to also enable allow_url_fopen):

You would su into the user via ssh that you wish to install this plugin into — it’s done per account and is not a global install.

wp package install git@github.com:wp-cli/doctor-command.git

The output should resemble the following:

WP Profile allows one to break WordPress loading into three stages and profile how long each stage takes, and further break down each stage into its components so that one may track and locate bottlenecks in thier site’s performance. The three stages are as follows:

Using the example from the project’s Github page wp-cli profile command, here is the output:

  +------------+---------+-------------+
  | stage      | time    | cache_ratio |
  +------------+---------+-------------+
  | bootstrap  | 0.7994s | 93.21%      |
  | main_query | 0.0123s | 94.29%      |
  | template   | 0.792s  | 91.23%      |
  +------------+---------+-------------+
  | total (3)  | 1.6037s | 92.91%      |
  +------------+---------+-------------+

You can then further profile each stage with `wp profile stage <stage>` like so (example also via the Github page for the project):

  wp profile stage bootstrap --fields=hook,time,cache_ratio --spotlight
  +--------------------------+---------+-------------+
  | hook                     | time    | cache_ratio |
  +--------------------------+---------+-------------+
  | muplugins_loaded:before  | 0.2335s | 40%         |
  | muplugins_loaded         | 0.0007s | 50%         |
  | plugins_loaded:before    | 0.2792s | 77.63%      |
  | plugins_loaded           | 0.1502s | 100%        |
  | after_setup_theme:before | 0.068s  | 100%        |
  | init                     | 0.2643s | 96.88%      |
  | wp_loaded:after          | 0.0377s |             |
  +--------------------------+---------+-------------+
  | total (7)                | 1.0335s | 77.42%      |
  +--------------------------+---------+-------------+

WP Profile installation is as follows (you may need to also enable allow_url_fopen):

You would su into the user via ssh that you wish to install this plugin into — it’s done per account and is not a global install.

wp package install git@github.com:wp-cli/profile-command.git

Extending WP-CLI

WP-CLI is even extendable, allowing one to write and add one’s own commands. More information can be found here:

WP_CLI::add_command() Commands Cookbook

Conclusion

You can take this as far as you’d like to completely automate WordPress hosting by setting WP-CLI commands in sequence in a bash script to completely install and configure WordPress installations with your chosen plugins and themes. You can even attach these to post-account creation hooks in your panel so that these scripts are called automatically upon account creation. To take this to another level, you can further automate account creation in both DirectAdmin and cPanel as they both have extensive APIs that support this. The possibilities are endless and the hosting industry is more automated than ever, thanks to amazing tools such as WP-CLI.