WP-Manage is dead, long live InstantUpgrade!

n

Why is that? Well, WP-Manage was designed to be an all-in-one solution for backups and upgrades. But there are already good solutions for WP backups, so we decided to concentrace on upgrading and build a proper tool for this, following the old Unix dictum: Do one thing, and do it well.

n

Please do no longer use WP-Manage, but switch to InstantUpgrade.

n

(Note: The comments below were made while WP-Manage was active.)

27 comments on “WP-Manage”

  1. Denis on January 19, 2007 at 18:33 #

    license?

  2. Alex Günsche on January 19, 2007 at 18:39 #

    Well, I prefer Free Software licenses. ;-) In this case it’s the GNU GPL as stated above.

  3. Brian Layman on January 19, 2007 at 18:59 #

    Odd, both the tar and zip won’t open on my PC. They say they are not valid archives under WinZip. Explorer can’t handle them either…

    Thoughts?

  4. Chris Poteet on January 19, 2007 at 19:02 #

    This is an amazing plugin! I’ll give a shot here soon.

  5. Alex Günsche on January 19, 2007 at 19:22 #

    Brian,

    Geez, that’s annoying. :-( I already had this issue that WinZip can’t open my archives a couple of times recently. I packed them on Linux and unfortunately I can’t test them on Windows. However, I usually recommend to give 7zip a shot, it’s Free Software, it’s versatile and it appears to cope with my uploaded archives. Please tell me if that works, elsewise I’ll try to find a different solution.

    edit: I added a little note to the Install instructions. I hate to dictate people the applications to use, but it’s better to have a working solution after all.

    Chris,

    just to avoid confusion, this is not a plugin (even though it uses some WP internals). ;-)

  6. Jonathan on January 20, 2007 at 22:35 #

    It’s about time! Great work and I’m really hoping WP integrates this into its core so upgrading will be easier from now on.

  7. Ibnu Asad on January 21, 2007 at 04:36 #

    Hello Alex,
    I know yout script is still on Alpha but in the future, would you consider to implement a feature that lets the backup files to be automatically saved/transfered to an another server?

    Kind Regards,
    Ibnu Asad

  8. Max on January 21, 2007 at 14:44 #

    Thanks for this beauseful hack

  9. GadeTerbob on January 21, 2007 at 17:41 #

    May I give you a huge “thumbs UP” for the update portion of this hack?

    An auto update function has been missing for way too long!!!

    Thanks Again!!

  10. Alex Günsche on January 21, 2007 at 19:57 #

    Hi guys,

    glad you like it. It was a bunch of work, and it’s nice to see that people have a use for it. :-)

    Ibnu,

    transfering to another server would be a bit complicated. Of course I could hack it, but the question is who would actually use it. I really don’t want to stuff it with too many features, so I’m really not to enthusiastic about implementing it at the moment (although it’s surely a nice idea). However, there will be a feature that allows the instant download of backup zips, so you don’t need to download them manually.

  11. Rob on January 22, 2007 at 10:32 #

    Great idea!

    Is it 2.1 compatible?

  12. Auke on January 22, 2007 at 13:16 #

    Your ‘plugin’ sounds perfect and want to implement it on my site; but to be on the safe side: “What is the number of the permission (e.g. 777) so my folder will be writable only by the webserver?

  13. Gabe on January 22, 2007 at 18:19 #

    Great!

    A couple of suggestions for future improvements:

    - Include a plugin for WP so that you can go directly from the WP UI to WP-Manage
    - Make the workflow support better by 1) After doing a backup provide a link on the confirmation screen to do an upgrade or return to wp-admin 2) After doing an upgrade provide a link to go to wp-admin

    Also, I had a couple of custom scripts (a customised wp-rss2.php renamed wp-rss2-xxxx.php) which was removed by the upgrade process. I should have been warned / had a choice about this.

    Great stuff though!

  14. Alex Günsche on January 23, 2007 at 11:35 #

    Rob, yes it is 2.1 compatible. At least it was with 2.1-alpha3. ;-)

    Auke, this depends on which group you (ftp user) and the webserver are in. If you’re in the same group, it is sufficient to set permissions 664. If you’re in different groups, which is more likely, you need to set permissions to 666. But as soon as you execute the upgrade script, the server will reset the values to sensible values. A note on directories: they actually need the execution permission, too, in order to be opened. So the mode for a directory should actually be 775 or 777. But a proper FTP client should be able to handle this, if you select 664 or 666 on a directory and its content, it should care for the directories to get the proper permissions.

    Gabe,

    - Include a plugin for WP so that you can go directly from the WP UI to WP-Manage
    - Make the workflow support better by 1) After doing a backup provide a link on the confirmation screen to do an upgrade or return to wp-admin 2) After doing an upgrade provide a link to go to wp-admin

    Good ideas, I’ll keep them in mind. Thanks. :-)

    Also, I had a couple of custom scripts (a customised wp-rss2.php renamed wp-rss2-xxxx.php) which was removed by the upgrade process. I should have been warned / had a choice about this.

    Sorry about that. You’re right, there should be at least a warning. I think I’ll also include an option to define a set of modified files to be preserved with an upgrade. However, it should be kept in mind that an upgrade could affect exactly the modified files, and an upgrade with some old files preserved could lead to unexpected behaviour. I’ll have some thoughts about how to solve this best.

  15. Peaceful on January 23, 2007 at 12:22 #

    Are the download-link broken? I can’t wait to test this…..

  16. Alex Günsche on January 23, 2007 at 12:48 #

    Sorry, it’s now there again.

    I have tested the upgrade to 2.1 and encountered errors. I have therefore taken down the broken version and have now released a new one. The download links have been updated.

    Please let me know how the update 2.1 works for you.

  17. Peaceful on January 23, 2007 at 19:39 #

    Thank you! I will test it soon…

  18. Peaceful on January 23, 2007 at 22:30 #

    I’m on 2.1 now. :)

    Your script is EXCELLENT. Thank you for your time and effort. Upgrades will be a breeze from now on.

  19. caprica on January 24, 2007 at 06:25 #

    wow, thank you! worked like a charm for me - unzipped fine with winrar/xp, scripts executed seamlessly, no problems with permissions or download links… this is one of the more useful wp utilities i’ve come across since i started using the software, and i know there are lots more people in addition to myself who will absolutely appreciate the time you took to make this excellent package.

    i was getting annoyed with dreamhost for taking too long to post the 2.1 upgrade for their wordpress installs, but dreading having to do a manual upgrade - then i found this tool, and it was an immediate fix for my impatience AND my desire to take some of the uneasiness out of upgrading - good work, and thanks so much!

  20. Fr. Daniel Sparks on February 18, 2007 at 20:47 #

    Does the upgrade overwrite theme files?

  21. Alex Günsche on February 19, 2007 at 18:21 #

    Hello Daniel,

    no it doesn’t. It preserves the entire wp-content directory (as well as wp-config.php).

  22. diego on February 20, 2007 at 10:22 #

    Is possible to preserve wp-includes/js/quicktags.js??

  23. Alex Günsche on February 21, 2007 at 00:33 #

    Unfortunately, it is not possible with the current version.
    But the next version will allow defining files to be preserved.

  24. T. Appelhagen on March 3, 2007 at 21:53 #

    Great Job!
    But: I’ve tested it on my local installation (I’m planning to switch our static site to wordpress sometime…) and encountered a problem. :(

    I am using a localized version (german) and after the upgrade (successful) the admin area was english again:

    The sub folder “languages” below “wp-includes” was gone?!
    The necessary file de_DE.mo was inside “wp-includes” now.

    Please have a look at this!

  25. Alex Günsche on March 4, 2007 at 14:23 #

    Ja, das Problem ist bekannt und wird mit der nächsten Version behoben. Leider bin ich momentan in mehrere Projekte eingebunden, d.h. die freien Projekte bleiben leider ein wenig zurück.

  26. Chris Hunt on March 5, 2007 at 11:21 #

    “anybody who knows the name of the file can download it and will have a copy of your WordPress database and all your files”

    That’s a pretty nasty flaw, even though the random filename makes it unlikely to occur in practice. Here’s two possible options that you might consider to avoid it:

    1) Have the routine email the archive to a specified address instead of storing it on the server (yeah, I know, email isn’t secure either).

    2) Allow the user to specify an alternative destination directory for the backups, so that it can be somewhere that the web server doesn’t serve. I know that won’t be any good to those who can’t/won’t use ftp, but it’s an option for the rest of us.

    I’ve not installed wp-manage yet, but it’s top of my to-do list…

  27. Lyus on March 9, 2007 at 20:01 #

    For everybody who likes a german Version, I translated it into german! It can be downloded at

    0.1-de Deutsche Übersetzung von Lyus

    greets Lyus