Update every site from one list, now or on a schedule.
When the same plugin needs updating on five sites, it shows once. Update one site or all of them, or let KontrolWP do it on a schedule you choose.
For WordPress sites. Needs the KontrolWP Connect plugin.
Update everything, safely.
The Overview groups each update across sites and queues it with one click. Each site then works through its own queue, one update at a time.
- Core, plugin and theme updates for every site, grouped by what is being updated
- Update one site, or Update all
- Failures show on the site that failed, with its message and a Try again button
- Scheduled updates for plugins, themes and, if you choose, WordPress
Northside Bakery
Scheduled updates.
Turn on Scheduled updates in Settings to have KontrolWP queue waiting updates at the day and hour you pick.
The details
How it works, point by point.
One update at a time per site
- WordPress goes into maintenance mode during an update and answers every other request with an error, so two updates sent together would make the second fail
- KontrolWP queues them and runs each site's queue in order, so a slow or broken site never holds up the others
- If a site is briefly busy, the update goes back in the queue and tries again, up to five times
- An update that sits running for 15 minutes is marked failed so the queue keeps moving
- When a core update is queued, it installs the version you were shown, never a newer one you have not seen
Scheduled updates
- Set it up in Settings. Choose WordPress, plugins and themes, then daily, weekly or monthly at a day and hour. The hour follows the time zone chosen under Link checks
- Each site can follow the global schedule, use its own, or run none. A site's own schedule runs even while the global one is off
- Leave plugins out globally, on a single site, or both. An exclusion at either level holds
- Plugins and themes queue first and WordPress last. WordPress updates are off by default
- Sites start 120 seconds apart, then run as ordinary updates, one at a time per site
- A site that is in error is skipped, and runs once it recovers the same day
- A run log in Settings and in each site's settings shows what each run queued and what it left out. It is kept for 90 days
Control per site
- Exclude a site from update checks in its settings. KontrolWP still syncs its status and comments, but lists and queues no updates for it
- KontrolWP Connect still updates itself on an excluded site, since the exclusion covers WordPress core, plugin and theme updates only
WordPress's own auto-updates
- Turn auto-updates on or off for each plugin, and for core across sites
- Core has three modes: all new versions, maintenance and security releases only (WordPress's default), or off
- A site whose wp-config.php decides core updates reports core as locked, and KontrolWP leaves it alone
KontrolWP Connect keeps itself current
- When a site runs an older plugin version, KontrolWP queues the plugin's own update. It never appears in your updates list
- A finished or failed self-update is not tried again for 6 hours, so a site that keeps reporting the old version never loops
- Sites on a version before 0.4.0 need the new plugin installed by hand once, and their page says so
Good to know
- Sites that set DISALLOW_FILE_MODS cannot be updated from KontrolWP.
- Updates run through the plugin you installed, so a site must be reachable over HTTPS for KontrolWP to update it.
Related
More from KontrolWP.
Plugins
Install, activate, deactivate and delete plugins, and set auto-updates, on one site or many at once.
Magic Login
Open any site's admin with a one-time link that lasts 60 seconds. No passwords to look up.
Security
Known vulnerabilities in core and plugins, rated by CVSS, plus a Settings list with one-click hardening fixes.
Take control of every WordPress site you run.
Deploy KontrolWP to your Cloudflare account and connect your first site.