If you find yourself in a situation that requires changes to your site, and your developer isn't available to help, DreamHost's skilled support team may be able to assist you for a small fee. You can find more information about supported services and associated costs in the DreamHost Professional Services article.
Overview
Keeping your WordPress site up to date is an essential step at running a secure and functional website. All DreamHost WordPress installs in the panel are always set to update automatically (unless you specifically turn it off). If your site is not a DreamHost WordPress install, you will need to manually update it. This article walks you through different ways to manually update your WordPress website.
Before you begin
Before you make any changes to your site, it's a good idea to make a backup of your WordPress installation. View the following articles for further information on backing up your website:
Updating your core WordPress files
You can use either the Dashboard Updates Screen or wp-cli to update your core WordPress files.
Via the WordPress dashboard
- Log into your WordPress site.
- On the left menu, choose 'Dashboard > Updates'.
- Click the Update to version x.x.x button.
Via wp-cli
- Log into your server via SSH.
- Navigate to your website's directory.
- Run the following command to download and install the updated WordPress files:
[server]$ wp core update