Replacing WordPress Files without Updating

  • I run a site which hosts around 20 WordPress blogs, all at the same central location. I don’t have admin access to these blogs, but I would like to have my users update their software.

    My problem is that I have no idea if/when each user will login, read my mail to update, and then click the link to do so. If I were to copy over the newly updated WordPress files, and their blog was accessed, would this damage their mySQL data?

    What would happen if I were to copy over the newly updated files and one of my users didn’t check his email (telling him to upgrade first.)

    OR, would there be a way (as an admin of the webserver with direct access over the files) to bypass the authentication for the upgrade and then upgrade each page without the end-user even knowing?

    Thanks thanks thanks!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

  • Since you can’t possibly know what tweaks and customizations your blog users have done, it would be VERY bad business to copy over their files without their knowledge.

    You should be able to find something in the way of a script that would notify you when changes had been made. I don’t know of something myself, but checking around on script sites should turn something up.

    A good solution for this in the future would be making each user’s install a Subversion checkout. This will require you to learn a bit about Subversion, but would allow you to see exactly what changes people have made to their files and would make upgrading to new versions of WordPress only take a few seconds.

    Thread Starter bi11i

    (@bi11i)

    Actually, I have complete control over their changes. I have control over everything, just not when they’re going to login nor if they’ve click upgrade before they log in the next time.

    I don’t have the features enabled where one can edit the files and templates directly, I’m running on IIS and am still unsure on the security (another issue I’ll resolve shortly.) So any and all changes to files have been made by me. They’re the same for everyone, straight across the board.

    Also, the database is the same for everyone (each user has his/her own prefix) so I should probably mention this, yes?

    Thanks for the help, have any further suggestions?

    (I guess my question here is what kind of damage could occur if running the new wordpress software without upgrading the database…?)

    WordPress 1.5.1 doesn’t require any changes to the database from 1.5.0, so between those versions you don’t have to worry. If you’re moving from an earlier version you would need to load upgrade.php for each site.

    Thread Starter bi11i

    (@bi11i)

    So from 1.5.0, I can simply copy the files over without running upgrade.php?

    Perfect! (yes?)

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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