WPCloudDeploy 5.3 is primarily an infrastructure related update. It does contain a couple of minor new features and a few important fixes. But, most of the new features are going to be invisible to you.
It is an important update because it makes it easier for developers to access, use and customize GIT and MULTI-TENANT features that would otherwise require a custom version of WPCD to be deployed.
It also deprecates a couple of older features.
New: Terminal Output Colors
You can now set the color for the ‘terminal’ when using features that require long-running commands. This can be useful for folks who might need certain accessibility related accommodations.
New: Git Foundation Support
This is one of the two major new ‘invisible’ features targeted at professional developers.
WPCD now includes a large number of pre-built git functions that developers can expose and use in GIT custom user interfaces and workflows.
New: Multi-tenant Foundation Support
This is the second major new ‘invisible’ feature targeted at professional developers. We’ve provided a large number of pre-built multi-tenant functions that developers can expose and use in multi-tenant related custom user interfaces and workflows. It is closely integrated with the GIT Foundation support mentioned above.
New: WooCommerce Multi-Tenant Services Integration
We’ve updated the WPCD WooCommerce Module to be aware of the new developer-focused multi-tenant workflows.
Additionally, you can now deploy new sites on the same server where your template sites are located. This can make site deployment faster after a user has completed the checkout process.
New: Delete Server Record
You can now delete a server record without deleting the server at the cloud provider.
This is similar to the site delete / trash option that allows for a site record to be deleted without removing the site files from the server.
Only WPCD admins will be able to delete a server record and only if the option is enabled in settings.
New: PHP 8.2 Support For Sites
PHP 8.2 will be an option for sites on new servers. It will also be an option for the default version for the server level PHP cli.
Note that WPCD itself will not be certified to run under PHP 8.2 until WordPress itself officially supports it along with the PHP API libraries for the various Cloud Server Providers.
New: Option To Remove VIEW APPS ON SERVER Link
There is now a setting that allows for the removal of the VIEW APPS ON SERVER link that is normally shown at the top of the site detail screen.
When enabled, it will only be removed for non-admin users.
New: Option To Simplify The CHANGE DOMAIN Tab
There is a new setting that allows for a very very simplified CHANGE DOMAIN screen. It removes just about everything except the most critical items.
When enabled, it will only work for non-admin users. Administrators will still see everything.
When combined with the existing option to remove most of the help text it results in a very minimalist screen.
Tweak: Email Gateway TLS Options
By default, the Email Gateway enables TLS. But, there are some deployment use-cases where this is not desired. So we now allow you to disable TLS if so desired.
Tweak: Better Post States Styling
This change is better illustrated with an image:
If you don’t use these labels or never noticed them in the past then you’re not going to be affected by this change (which is all eye-candy so-to-speak).
Tweak: Retention Days
When disabling AUTOMATIC BACKUPS on a server, we now keep the original specified retention days value in the UI instead of reverting back to the system default value of 7.
This prevents users from thinking that the retention days feature is not working or that the value is not being respected.
Tweak: Callbacks
Callbacks have been updated to better handle unexpected return values from apt-get. This should resolve an issue that appeared recently on certain DigitalOcean deployments.
Tweaks: Basic Authentication
We now hide the credential fields when HTTP Basic Authentication is enabled on the site or the wp-login.php page.
Tweak: Change Some Verbiage In Tab Security
The verbiage used for the toggles in security for tabs area has changed. It should now clearer when a tab is visible or not visible.
Deprecated & Removed Features
- The 6G Firewall tab is no longer shown on new servers.
- If you’re not using the 6G firewall you can now remove the rules from your server (see the server UPGRADES tab). Once removed, there will be no option to re-add them.
- Ubuntu 18.04 is no longer an option when creating new servers.
Miscellaneous Changes and Fixes
- Tweak: Use the latest version of the 7G firewall (version 1.6).
- Tweak: Fix a comment in the pending tasks screen when disabling a cache is done as a background task.
- Tweak: Remove size constraint from certain input fields on tabs to enable more fluid responsive behavior.
- Fix: HTTP2 could not be enabled
- Fix: A 500 error / hard php error was thrown when using the SELECT2 filter for owners in the app screen (the select2 filter only shows if the number of users is greater than 25.)
- Fix: Certain filters in the server and site list were not working when the language was set to something other than English.
- Fix: Disabling/Enabling browser cache tweak was not working for OLS.
- Fix: OLS Auto-restart cron when .htaccess file changes was not working as intended.
- Fix: Missing variable value when installing memcached. Harmless – just threw a php warning.
- Fix: Remove nginx related sections in the fail2ban tab when the web server is an OLS server.
- Fix: Handle an SSH message related to Multisite wildcard ssl – when ssl was already disabled we weren’t flipping the appropriate metas.
- Fix: Special code to handle update count issue with DigitalOcean servers.
- Fix: The file name conventions used by the CACHE ENABLER plugin for nginx was changed – update bash scripts to match. (Thanks @msalaj for pointing this out).
- Fix: Better handling for duplicate letsencrypt folders that end with -00xx.
- Fix: When multisite SSL is on, the status was not shown properly in the site list.
- Fix: An invalid variable name warning was thrown during the quick domain change operation.
- Dev: Preliminary foundation set for moving SERVER PROVIDER and DNS data into custom tables.
- Dev: Use global function to reset site permissions (refactor).
- Dev: Add option for executing local post-processing scripts after a site is cloned.
- Dev: New filters available when displaying info in the server actions column.
5.3.1 Fixes & Tweaks
- New: Add option to capture low disk space condition when callbacks are run and optionally send alert to admin.
- Tweak: Update default list of WP versions.
- Fix: Monit running on OLS servers would always disable MYSQL because of a bad file check.
- Fix: Creating or updating a user notification profile in wp-admin instead of the front-end did not correctly display the title when an object cache is in use
5.3.2 Fixes & Tweaks
- Tweak: Add text on server upgrade tab to indicate that installing php 8.2 is optional.
- Fix: WP_CACHE constant needs to be set with the –raw option when using wp-cli.
- Fix: Spelling error on the low disk space notification message.
Other
Existing servers will require an upgrade step – OpenLiteSpeed and NGINX each have different items that need to be upgraded.
And, if you still have Ubuntu 18.04 servers deployed you will need to toggle on an option in your settings area.
Update History
- 08-08-2023: Added button to link to release notes for v5.3.3 and later.
- 05-17-2023: Added section for fixes in v5.3.1 and v5.3.2
- 05-11-2023: Added note about responsive behavior tweak for certain tabs.
- 05-08-2023 – Added notes about http auth credentials, security tab verbiage, change domain tab and more.
- 05-04-2023 – added new notes about the DELETE SERVER RECORD link.
- Updated: 03-20-2023
- Updated: 03-16-2023
- Initial Publication: 02-16-2023
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