How can I use WP-CLI commands without --allow-root

Hello, @newwayelegant

Could you please let me know if the root user is the only available user on your droplet? What you can do is to create additional user and switch to it in order to use the wp-cli. The new user should have writable access to your website’s files.

Hope that this helps! Regards, Alex

To use WP-CLI commands securely without using the --allow-root flag in your Ubuntu 20.04 droplet, you’ll need to configure a non-root user with appropriate permissions to access and manage your WordPress files. Here’s how you can set this up:

Step 1: Create a New User

1. Connect to your server via SSH using Putty as the root user.
2. Create a new user. Replace username with the desired username:

adduser username

3. Follow the prompts to set the password and other details for the new user.

Step 2: Add User to the Web Server Group

Your web server (usually Apache or Nginx) runs under a specific user group, commonly www-data for Apache on Ubuntu. Adding your new user to this group will help manage file permissions effectively.

usermod -aG www-data username

Step 3: Set Proper Permissions

To ensure that your new user has the correct permissions to manage the WordPress files, you should adjust the permissions of your WordPress directory. Assuming your WordPress is installed in /var/www/html, you can do the following:

1. Change the ownership of the WordPress files to www-data (web server) while granting write access to your user group:

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html

2. Set directory permissions to 775 and file permissions to 664 to allow group write permissions:

find /var/www/html -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
find /var/www/html -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;

Step 4: Configure SSH Access for the New User

For better security, it’s recommended to use SSH keys instead of passwords:

1. On your local machine, generate an SSH key pair if you haven’t already:

ssh-keygen

2. Copy your public key to the server under the new user. Replace username and server_ip with your actual username and server IP:

ssh-copy-id username@server_ip

Now, try logging in with the new user:

ssh username@server_ip

Step 5: Use WP-CLI as the New User

Now, log in to your server with the new user account

ssh username@server_ip

Navigate to your WordPress directory:

cd /var/www/html

You should now be able to use WP-CLI commands without needing to use --allow-root:

wp plugin list

Additional Tips

• Regularly update WP-CLI: To keep WP-CLI up-to-date, you can run wp cli update periodically.
• Use WP-CLI from anywhere: To run WP-CLI from any directory, make sure the WP-CLI path is included in your user’s $PATH environment variable.

By following these steps, you can safely use WP-CLI commands without using the root user, enhancing the security of your WordPress site on your DigitalOcean droplet.