MainWP Blog - MainWP How To’s

We’re really excited to announce the release of MainWP v5.2. This significant release includes several fixes, updates, and additions. These include the new Kinsta integration, ignored updates for specific plugin or theme versions, and an option to schedule automatic updates at a specific time. However, what we all feel is the most exciting addition is our new MainWP REST API v2 update! This new API version is part of the Core MainWP Dashboard plugin and will allow you to connect Continue reading the post...

In WordPress’s dynamic realm, website security is an ever-pressing concern. With the platform powering a significant portion of the internet, ensuring robust security measures is imperative. One often overlooked aspect of security is managing idle user sessions effectively. Leaving user sessions open for extended periods can expose your website to potential threats. However, implementing automated idle user logout mechanisms can significantly enhance your WordPress site’s security posture. Idle user logout refers to automatically terminating user sessions that have been inactive Continue reading the post...

ManageWP is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform for managing multiple sites, whereas MainWP is an open-source, self-hosted solution that prioritizes privacy for you and your clients when handling multiple websites from a centralized dashboard. Learn: Why Privacy for Your Clients is Important! Before moving forward, let’s learn a bit about the MainWP system. MainWP is a set of two plugins, “MainWP Dashboard” & “MainWP Child”. The MainWP Dashboard plugin is installed on a WordPress website from where you Continue reading the post...

I know it has happened to you before. You are updating your websites and that plugin causes a problem. Again. How many times has that happened? Maybe you are having some kind of conflict. It happens more than we want to think. Every week, you are taking care of your customer’s websites and something always seems to happen. You think to yourself, “I wish I had a staging site set up to test some of these plugin updates.” Never fear Continue reading the post...

To update the MainWP Child plugin, there are 2 simple methods: Stanard update method Update by overwriting the old version Stanard update method Once the MainWP Child plugin version is available, and after syncing your sites, the update will be available on the MainWP Updates page. To perform the update, follow these steps: Go to your MainWP Dashboard Go to the MainWP > Updates page Set the Show per updates option to per Plugin/Theme Locate the MainWP Child plugin in Continue reading the post...

MainWP Child 4.0.3, released on October 1st, 2019, introduced one handy filter mainwp_child_branding_init_options that can be used to hide custom branding for a specific user on child sites. Let’s see the usage example: add_filter( 'mainwp_child_branding_init_options', 'mycustom_mainwp_child_branding_init_options' ); function mycustom_mainwp_child_branding_init_options( $option ) {        $current_user_id = get_current_user_id();        if ( $current_user_id == '1' && is_array( $option ) && isset( $option[ 'cancelled_branding' ] ) ) {        $option[ 'cancelled_branding' ] = true;    }        return $option; } In this example, all custom MainWP Branding Extension options Continue reading the post...

With the breaking changes for WooCommerce if running versions earlier than 3.5.x due to WordPress 5.x release, now is the time to create a staging site. A staging site can be used to test the active theme updates, the WooCommerce-related plugins, and the WooCommerce plugin. Creating a staging site allows you to test plugin updates without having to cause issues on the live child site. In the case of child sites using WooCommerce for e-commerce, this can mean a live Continue reading the post...

MainWP now has a very useful way to track changes made on both the MainWP Dashboard site, as well as tracking changes to connected child sites using Activity Log for MainWP extension. First, you will need to install the WP Activity Log plugin on all of the connected child sites, which is very easy to bulk install plugins on your MainWP Dashboard site. Next, you will need to install the Activity Log for MainWP extension on your MainWP Dashboard site. Continue reading the post...

WordPress in its core has a function called XML-RPC, which a limited number of plugins still use like Jetpack. More plugins used to use it when the only method would have been to use the XML-RPC. Most plugins now use the WordPress REST API to connect to a site to pull data from it, by either read or write access. XML-RPC is still targeted for brute force attacks on WordPress sites. A number of CDNs like Cloudflare and Sucuri will Continue reading the post...

Sometimes you will run into issues on your child sites which are being caused by active cron jobs. Cron jobs are recurring tasks that need to be run on a site. Most of the time, cron jobs are created by the active plugins (e.g., these cron events all running due to WooCommerce): woocommerce_cancel_unpaid_orders woocommerce_cleanup_sessions woocommerce_cleanup_personal_data woocommerce_cleanup_logs woocommerce_scheduled_sales woocommerce_geoip_updater delete_expired_transients delete_version_transients Cron Events There are ways to view all cron jobs on a child site by using a plugin like WP Continue reading the post...