Slides from my talk in WordCamp KL 2019 on wp-cli as in-depth as possible including remote workloads and some scripting examples.

1. >
> wp-cli in-depth > sanjay@astiostech.com
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2. >> What we’ll cover..
• Why wp-cli
• cli conventions
• Intro to wp-cli
• Requirements
• wp-cli
• Normal usage
• Advanced usage
• Remote usage
• Common issues
• Summary

3. >>Playing fields
“Command line”
“WordPress”
Beginner Expert
Beginner Expert

4. >> Our setup
• Debian Linux
• LXC Container
• Up to date OS/Apps
• I use VPN to connect to
the cloud
• With 1GB Ram/8GB HDD 2
CPU cores

5. >> But why CLI?
• More control & precision
• Make repeated tasks easier
• Powerful - limited by your imagination
• Can do more than GUI/WUI (in WordPress’s case)
• Your first step into coding, perhaps?
• Write ./scripts.php or scripts.sh to automate
• Remote operations
• You can copy/paste
• Join the cool kids 8-)

6. >> Weapon of choice
WUI(1-5)
CLI(1-
30)
Commercial
and Ci/Cd
tools
• wp-cli
• Best used for single or
multiple sites of around
30 installs that you
manage
• Of course it manage as
many host as you have

7. >> CLI conventions
• CLI examples
#dir
#ls
• With arguments
#dir /w /O:D
#ls –l –-sort=time
• With positional arguments
#./myscript.php arg1 arg2 arg3

8. >> Intro to wp-cli
• Written in PHP
• Effort to provide complete alternative to WordPress
• According to GitHub, the first versions were in 2011!
• Current version is 2.3.0, released on Aug 14 this year
• Has over 40 arguments (and their options) which make
them thousands in all
• Hundreds of 3rd party plugin support and growing, e.g
BuddyPress, WP Super Cache
• You can write your own
• Multi-site support (single hardware, many sites)
• Remote operations support (with SSH)

9. >> Basic requirements
• UNIX-like environment (OS X, Linux, FreeBSD,
Cygwin); limited support in Windows environment
• PHP 5.4 or later
• WordPress 3.7 or later. Versions older than the
latest WordPress release may have degraded
functionality
• Have rights to the WordPress installation
folder, e.g. /var/www/wordpress
• Need CLI access (duh..)

10. >> wp-cli: Installing
• Get wp-cli. Recommended way is using phar file
#curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-
pages/phar/wp-cli.phar
• Rename wp-cli.phar to wp (easy to use)
#mkdir /home/www-data && chown www-data -R /home/www-data
#cp wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp
• Make it executable
#chmod +x /usr/local/bin/wp
• Use a non-root user, e.g. www-data
#usermod www-data -s /bin/bash -d /home/www-data
#su www-data
• Test wp cli a’bit
#cd /home/www-data
#wp --info

11. >> wp-cli: Basic stuff
• RTFM
#wp help
#wp help plugin
• Update your wp-cli
#wp cli check-update
#wp cli update (run as root!)
• Check version of WP
#wp core version --path=/var/www/wordpress
• Check for core updates
#wp core check-update --path=/var/www/wordpress
• Check for plugin updates
#wp plugin update --dry-run --all --path=/var/www/wordpress

12. >>Using the
wp-cli.yml file
• The config file has
global options, such
as defining the path
of your wp install.
• Three different files
• config.yml
• wp-cli.yml
• wp-cli.local.yml
• Let’s create a wp-
cli.local.yml file for
our ease and add
colors to our wp cli
commands
#nano wp-cli.local.yml
path: /var/www/wordpress
color: true

13. >> wp-cli: Installing WordPress
• Download, configure DB and install
WordPress
#wp core download (--local=cn)
#wp core config --dbhost=localhost --dbname=wordpress --
dbuser=root --dbpass=mypass --path=/var/www/wordpress (-–
extra-php..)
#wp db create
#wp core install --url=http://url.com --title=CLI --
admin_user=supervisor --admin_password=wpcli123 --
admin_email=sanjay@astiostech.com --path=/var/www/wordpres

14. >> wp-cli: Inventory stuff
• #wp option --list
• #wp option get blogdescription
• #wp option update blogdescription "Here's to the Joker"
• #wp config list
• #wp checksum core
• #wp checksum plugin akismet
• #wp plugin list --status=inactive [active]
• #wp theme list --status=inactive [active]
• #wp post list (get [1..n])
• Let’s be lazy, make an alias (e.g.)
#alias wp-inactive='wp plugin list --status=inactive && wp theme list --
status=inactive'

15. >> wp-cli: Installing stuff
• Plugins
#wp plugin install jetpack (--activate)
#wp plugin activate jetpack
• Themes
#wp theme install freedom (--activate)
#wp theme activate freedom
• But I don’t know the plugin/theme name?
#wp plugin/theme search <keyword>

16. >> wp-cli: Updating stuff
• Updating one plugin or theme
#wp plugin update akismet
#wp theme update twentyfifteen
• Updating all plugin or theme
#wp plugin update --all
#wp theme update --all
• Updating WordPress core itself to specific
version or latest
#wp core version
#wp core check-update
#wp core update --version=4.9.10
#wp core update --minor
#wp core update
#wp core update-db

17. >> wp-cli: Operational stuff
• Create a post(s)
#wp post create --post_content="Just a cli test" --post_title="Written In CLI" --
post_excerpts="Nothing but a cli test" --post_status=publish
#for i in {1..10}; do wp post create --post_content="Just a cli test no - $i" --
post_title="Written In CLI $i" --post_excerpts="Nothing but a cli test $i" --
post_status=publish; done
• Update a post, enter a tag for a post
#wp post edit 1
#wp post term list 1 post_tag
#wp post update 1 --tags_input='Movies, FunStuff'
• Modifying sidebars
#wp widget list freedom_right_sidebar
#wp widget add categories freedom_right_sidebar --title=Cats
• Delete inactive themes and plugins(Script)
#wp theme delete $(wp theme list --status=inactive --field=name)
• Create users
#wp user create sanjay sanjayws@gmail.com --role=contributor

18. >> wp-cli: Maintenance stuff
• Enter maintenance mode
#wp maintenance-mode activate [deactive]
• Search and replace
#wp search-replace "CLI" "Command Line Interface" wp_posts --dry-run
#wp search-replace "CLI" "Command Line Interface" wp_posts
• Backing up
#wp export
• Restoring (with a plugin)
#wp plugin install wordpress-importer && wp plugin activate
wordpress-importer
#wp import /home/www-data/wordcampsite1.wordpress.2019-10-31.000.xml
--authors=create

19. >> wp-cli: Maintenance stuff
• Check if your DB is good, and run optimization
#wp db check
#wp db optimize
• Reset passwords
#wp user update admin --user_pass=wp.123lah
• Performance profiling
#wp package install wp-cli/profile-command
#wp profile hook plugins_loaded --spotlight

20. >> wp-cli: Advance stuff
• Create and start a webserver using php serve. We
will prepare a new ”site”. Run as root!
#mkdir /home/www-data/wpress2 && cd /home/www-data/wpress2
#wp core download --path=.
#wp core config --dbhost=localhost --dbname=test_wp2 --dbuser=root --
dbpass="" --path=. --allow-root
• Setup a database for WordPress called “test_wp2”
#mysql -e "create database test_wp2;" ( -u –p)
• Setup WordPress basic config
#wp core install --url=http://url.com --title=CLI --admin_user=admin --
admin_password=admin@.123 --admin_email=sanjay@astiostech.com --
path=/home/www-data/wpress2 --allow-root --path=.
• Start temp webserver
#wp server --host=0.0.0.0 --port=1111 --docroot=/home/www-data/wpress2 --
allow-root

21. >> wp-cli: Remote stuff
• All command that we’ve done previously, can be
executed on a remote server
• There are several ways to do this
• From wp cli
• Using remote tools like plink, the “expect” command
from Linux etc.
• Requires wp cli installed remotely
# wp core version --ssh=www-data@10.88.0.111:/var/www/wordpress

22. >> wp-cli: Remote stuff
• Passwordless with SSH Keys (go back to root)
• Generate key on local machine
# /usr/bin/ssh-genkey
• Copy that key to remote machine and paste inside
# /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id www-data@10.88.0.111
• Create an alias for easy access, add to .yml file
@prod:
ssh: www-data@10.88.0.111
path: /var/www/wordpress
• Now, let’s update everything on remote using script
#!/bin/bash
myhost=$1
if [[ "$myhost" == "" ]]; then
echo "No host defined"
exit 1
else
wp core version --ssh=www-data@$myhost
wp plugin update --all --ssh=www-data@$myhost
wp theme update --all --ssh=www-data@$myhost
wp core update --ssh=www-data@$myhost
wp core update-db --ssh=www-data@$myhost
wp core version --ssh=www-data@$myhost
exit 0
fi

23. >> Common issues
• Multisite?
• Define sites in .yml files by its url http://<>
• Running as root
• Don’t
• Add --allow-root
• Can’t find install directory
• Define in wp-cli.yml or wp-cli.local.yml
• Define with flag --path=/..
• Something didn’t work? Debug
• Use --debug

24. >> Summary
• wp-cli is perfect for mundane tasks
• wp-cli aims to be a complete alternative to the
WUI
• wp-cli is ever growing
• wp-cli can install WordPress, update stuff, manage
posts, fix problems, reset passwords, etc..
• wp-cli is extremely light-weight
• wp-cli has APIs and you can write your own
commands
• wp-cli is totally cool and you must try!

25. >> References
• wp-cli official:
https://wp-cli.org/
• Installation:
https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/installing/
• Commands reference:
https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/
• Config files:
https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/config/
• Running remotely
https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/running-commands-remotely/
• Profiling
https://guides.wp-bullet.com/using-wp-cli-wp-profile-to-diagnose-
wordpress-performance-issues/
• All Option
https://codex.wordpress.org/Option_Reference
• API guide:
https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/internal-api/
• Common issues:
https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/common-issues/