How to speed up installing plugins and upgrading WordPress

Question

I currently run on a VPS that is running the latest version of Ubuntu, PHP 5.5.9, and WP 4.0, and have been running my plugin upgrades through libssh2 via a configuration in wp-config.php ever since I started working on this VPS, as WordPress is unable to open a connection automatically.

However, within the past week or so, I've noticed plugin installs and WordPress upgrades have become increasingly slow, with the browser hanging for almost 1-2 minutes before confirming that my plugin is installed. (Jetpack takes an extremely long time to update, as an example.) One side effect that I've noticed is that PHP often exits before the .maintenance file is removed. Problematic, as I then have to go and remove it myself by connecting to the server.

Is there a way I can speed things up and get PHP to run faster?

Answer 1

As you're using a VPS with SSH access, give WP-CLI a try http://wp-cli.org/

can work wonderfully http://centminmod.com/nginx_configure_wordpress_ffpc_plugin.html#installwp

for example to install limit login attempts plugin just run this command from SSH within your wordpress install directory

wp plugin install limit-login-attempts --activate --allow-root

full list of command line options at http://wp-cli.org/commands/

updating plugins http://wp-cli.org/commands/plugin/ & http://wp-cli.org/commands/plugin/update/

wp plugin update limit-login-attempts --allow-root

Answer 2

WP-CLI known as The command line interface for WordPress would be a great option for you.

You can read the documentation here:

https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/

But also you can use wp-useful-plugins. With help of wp-useful-plugins you can install and update other plugins instantly without any .maintenance issue.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-useful-plugins/