What’s New In WPCloudDeploy 5.0

Introduction

WPCloudDeploy 5.0 is going to be the largest release we’ve done in quite a while. In fact, it might be the largest release since the original version 1.0.

It’s chocked full of a ton of some of the most requested features in our public roadmap. The top two requests are now a reality along with a number of other smaller items.

Note: Please review our upgrade instructions before upgrading.

Now, without any additional delay, here is what you can expect in the new version:

New: Introducing Support for OpenLiteSpeed

We now support OpenLiteSpeed on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and 22.04 LTS. It will initially be classified as an “early release” feature but will be fully supported – just expect to get some nicks here and there as you get started with it.

And, since we’re getting used to the platform ourselves, our support might be a little delayed sometimes.

But, if you’re excited about us finally adding this feature you can read more it in our call for beta testers article that we published at the beginning of the month.

Note: Despite the image above, we’re not releasing support for LiteSpeed Enterprise with this version – that’s just something we were playing around with for a bit during the development of our support for OLS and other web servers.

New: A Front-end UI for Customers

We’ve create a new front-end UI for your customers that is very flexible and easy to style. We introduced it earlier this month in our call for testers article so hop on over to that if you haven’t read it already.

New: Backup To S3 Compatible Endpoints

You can now specify a 3rd party S3 compatible endpoint for your backups.

This means you can now send your backups to services such as Backblaze and DigitalOcean Spaces.

New: Admin Locks For Sites

You can now apply an admin lock to a site.

What’s an admin lock you ask?

An admin lock will, with just a couple of clicks, disable all tabs for any non-admin user of the site – while still allowing the admin to continue to perform admin functions on it.

The combination of the ability to completely disable a site so it is no longer accessible, AND admin locks, provide a potent tool to assist with billing, quota overages and other customer issues.

When a user goes to the administration screen of a site that has an admin lock applied, they will see a notice to that effect and will not be able to perform any management functions on the site. This notice can be customized by the admin.

New: Disk Quotas

You can now apply a disk quota to each site. An alert will be added to the notifications queue if a quota is exceeded.

You can also choose additional actions when a quota is exceeded:

  • Disable a site
  • Apply an admin lock to the site

There are two different quota values you can specify in the global settings.

  • A quota that can be applied to all sites that do not yet have an assigned quota.
  • A quota that will be stamped on each new site. This will override the first option for any new site.

Admins can change quotas individually on each new site using a new Quotas and Limits metabox.

One very important note: the quotas will only be evaluated every night when callbacks are run. For real-time alerts when disk space is running low on a server you should still use the tools on the server HEALING tab.

New: Limit Number of Sites Allowed On A Server

You can now limit the number of sites a customer can create on their server.

Each server has a new metabox that permits an admin to set the site limit.

New: Override List of WordPress Versions

When a user or admin goes to install a new site, they are presented with our default list of WordPress versions. However, you might not want to support all those versions.

Now you can create your own list of versions:

New: Chiclets

We’ll admit that maybe we could have picked a better name for this feature. Remember chiclet bubble-gum and how tiny they were? That’s the impetus behind this name. (Apologies to all our customers outside the United States who have never been exposed to chiclet bubble-gum.)

In the context of WPCD, the name refers to the new tiny quick informational boxes at the top of a site admin screen:

New: Support for Ubuntu 22.04

We’ve added the option to install Ubuntu 22.04 servers. You will need new versions of providers to take advantage of this option. But if you’re using DigitalOcean you’re good to go without any additional plugin updates needed.

Unfortunately there are a few providers who do not yet support Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. These are:

  • AWS Lightsail
  • Alibaba

New: Option To Disable Support For Certain Operating Systems

We’ve added three new options in our settings area to disable each OS version.

This gives you the flexibility to prevent your customers from installing servers with an OS that you do not want to support.

We assume that most users will disable Ubuntu 18.04 since it will no longer receive any updates (security or otherwise) at the end of its life in April 2023.

New: Installation Wizard

For new users, we’ve added an installation wizard to better guide you through the initial connection to DigitalOcean, setup your SSH keys and so-on.

Unfortunately the Wizard only works with DigitalOcean. Depending on how it’s received we’ll add in support for Linode, Vultr and other providers later.

New: Auto Create SSH Keys

The biggest challenge when a new user installs WPCD is managing SSH keys. We have added a feature that should help with this.

On certain providers there is now a CREATE SSH KEY-PAIR button. If the API key is correct, this button will create a key-pair and install it at those providers.

Providers that support this feature are:

  • DigitalOcean
  • Linode
  • Vultr
  • UpCloud
  • Hetzner
  • OpenStack Private Cloud

New: Test Provider Connection Button

For certain providers we have added a button to test the connection and validate their api keys (or other connection information).

Other fields in the settings area for the provider will not be shown until the admin has used the test button to validate the key.

Providers that support this feature are:

  • DigitalOcean
  • Linode
  • Vultr
  • UpCloud
  • Hetzner
  • OpenStack Private Cloud

New: File Manager

We’ve add a new tab for sites that will allow you to enable a FILE MANAGER. It’s based on the well-known TINY FILE MANAGER project.

New: Remote Databases

You can now easily configure your site to use a database server located remotely – eg: an AWS RDS server or a DigitalOcean or Vultr database server.

New: Click To Copy IP

We’re not quite sure why it took us this long to add this feature. But it’s here. Whereever you see an IP address (IPv4 or IPv6), you can how hover over it and then click to copy it to the clipboard.

New: Automatic Updates From Github

You can now use the GIT UPDATER plugin to get core updates from Github.

The updates will be pulled from the MAIN branch unless you configure the UPDATER plugin to pull from other branches.

This allows you to get updates before they are officially released on our site through or regular automatic updates process.

Please note that this is best used by developers since pulling code directly from the repo before it’s officially released can include breaking changes and, of course, bugs. Use at your own risk!

Improved: Cron Handling

We’ve add an optional, better method for triggering the critical Cron processes required to keep WPCD healthy.

Going forward this will be the recommended method for triggering WPCD core crons since it should be far more reliable.

You will also be able to better audit when the WPCD Crons trigger which will be helpful when troubleshooting.

Click the button below to read more about this in the documentation.

Improved: WP_DEBUG Handling

In prior versions, if you used the buttons to enable or disable WP_DEBUG, we did not show a toggle. Now, if you do, you’ll be able to go back and check the WP_DEBUG status.

We’ll also push the WP_DEBUG status back to WPCD every night (if the latest version of the callbacks are installed.)

WooCommerce Enhancements

We’ve added a lot of new features to our WooCommerce integration that take advantage of WPCD 5.0. Read about those in our What’s New in WooCommerce 3.0 Article.

Power Tools Enhancements

We’ve added a couple of new features to Power Tools that depend WPCD 5.0. Read more about these in the What’s New In Power Tools 2.1 article.

New Command Line Scripts

We’ve added a script to allow you to setup a web-based file manager for your site using the well-known TINY FILE MANAGER.

Dev: Filter Hooks

New developer hooks have been added – we’ll create additional developer documentation for these as we get closer to the final release.

apply_filters( 'wpcd_default_web_server_type', $default_web_server );
apply_filters( 'wpcd_allowed_wp_versions', $versions );
apply_filters( 'wpcd_wpapp_validate_domain_on_clone', true, $args['new_domain'] )  // Clone
apply_filters( "wpcd_wordpress-app_install_wp_app_parms_validate", true, $additional, $args )  // New install

Deprecated Features

As with most major version releases, certain items are deprecated:

  • Support for ubuntu 18.04 LTS on new servers – we strongly recommend 20.04 or 22.04 (where available) instead for all new servers.
  • We now exclude servers with 512MB RAM from the server sizes list for the DigitalOcean provider.
  • The meta that tracks whether the page cache is enabled was renamed from wpapp_nginx_pagecache_status to wpapp_pagecache_status.  The upgrade should occur automatically whenever you view a site in wpcd. The prior name is no longer valid on new sites.

Upgrading

If you have any of our premium modules active the you MUST follow the upgrade instructions to prevent fatal PHP errors on your site!

If you only have the core module active you can use the WP updates screen as you would with any other WP plugin.

Availability

Want to try it now? There are two ways to get the beta:

  1. You can download and install a preview version directly from the dev branch in our github project. It will install as 4.29 instead of 5.0 – we’ll add the 5.0 tag once we’re close to a release.
  2. For current customers, there is a new product in your account called BETA PRODUCTS – all free and premium beta files can be downloaded from this product directly from your WPCD account.

This release will require new versions of almost every premium module including WooCommerce, PowerTools and server providers.


Credits

Massive props to wpjohnny for his contributions to the OpenLiteSpeed feature. He’s always been a big fan of OLS and decided to fork WPCD and add OLS support for his own use – long before we had the time or resources for it. Thus we were able to take a lot of what he and Mike Ramsey did and use it as a base. Thanks Johnny and Mike!

In addition, Kevin Shenk did most of the work on the S3 compatible endpoints and submitted a PR for it. Thanks to his contribution you can now send your backups to places like DigitalOcean and Backblaze!

Kevin also handled the change to use the GIT UPDATER plugin for updates.

Three big wins for open-source!


This article was originally published on June 14th and last updated on November 11th. It will continue to get minor updates as we add new features and resolve existing issues.

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