WordPress – Use SFTP When Installing Themes or PLugins

Installing Themes, Plugins, Automatic WordPress Updates, Theme Updates, Plugin Update in WordPress over SFTP

With WordPress, installing plugins, updates and themes can be complex when trying to accomplish this via SFTP as opposed to FTP (which is supported within the WordPress core)

There is a plugin available to accomplish with minimal effort.

Step 1

Download This SFTP plugin Official wordpress plugin page

Step 2

Unzip the folder and you will find a the child folder named ssh-sftp-updater-support. Using an FTP client like FileZilla copy this child folder (including it’s contents) into /wp-content/plugins/

Step 3

Login to your wordpress dashboard and activate the SSH SFTP Updater Support plugin

Step 4

Open your wp-config file and paste in the following code, changing the credentials to what your SFTP login settings are

define( 'FTP_USER', 'user1' );
define( 'FTP_PASS', 'passWord123' );
define( 'FTP_HOST', '111.22.33.44:22' );
define( 'FS_METHOD', 'ssh2' );

Now you should be able to install themes, update wordpress and install plugins without any issues!