Enable WordPress SSH access

SSH2 (SFTP) connections are much more secure than the regular FTP connection that WordPress supports. In this post, I will explain how to enable WordPress SSH access on a self-hosted blog running on Linux operating system. WordPress also supports FTPS, which is different from SFTP and more secure than regular FTP. But I do not use FTPS to connect to my server. This is what I did to enable WordPress SSH access (SFTP) to install, update, and delete WordPress and WordPress plugins.

Enable WordPress SSH access

sudo apt-get install libssh2-php

Once this is done, edit the /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini file (remember to back it up first).

sudo nano -w /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Find the section "Dynamic Extensions" and add the following under it in a new line:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Dynamic Extensions ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
extension=ssh2.so

Note that there is no semicolon in front of "extension=ssh2.so". There will be several other entries with a semicolon in front. Ignore them.

Then restart your apache.

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now go to your connections page on your wordpress blog and Voila!.... you should see this:

If you would like to optimize your WordPress URL structure to make it more search engine and user friendly, please read this post.

That is it. Enjoy!

UPDATE: This method works on Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin as well.