Do not fear the shell! If you have SSH enabled web hosting, you should use it to upgrade your WordPress installation. Believe it or not, it only consists of a few steps (note that the instructions below assume that WP is installed in ~/public_html/):
- Login via SSH to your host
- Go to a temporary directory:
cd /tmp - Grab the latest WP archive:
wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz - Extract the archive contents:
tar xzf latest.tar.gz - You should now see a wordpress directory extracted in the currect location, go in it:
cd wordpress/ - Copy the default themes to your WP install’s wp-content/themes directory:
cp -R wp-content/themes/* ~/public_html/wp-content/themes/ - Copy the bundled plugins (Hello Dolly and Akismet) to your WP install’s wp-content/plugins directory:
cp -R wp-content/plugins/* ~/public_html/wp-content/plugins/ - Delete the wp-content directory:
rm -rf wp-content/ - Copy all other files and directories of the new version onto the WP installation path (overwriting the older ones):
cp -R * ~/public_html/
To complete the process, run the WP upgrade script at http://yoursite/wp-admin/upgrade.php.
That’s it! Enjoy your upgraded WP!