Adding plugins and themes

Once members of your team have access to your application’s WordPress Admin dashboard, GitHub repository, and VIP Dashboard, you are ready to add plugins and themes.

In a typical WordPress installation plugins and themes are added via the WordPress Admin dashboard (WP Admin) or using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). On WPVIP there is no FTP access, and the WP Admin cannot be used to add plugins and themes.

Instead, plugins and themes must be added to an application’s GitHub repository. Only team members who have been granted access to the application’s GitHub repository with a Write or Admin user role can add plugins or themes.

A plugin or theme is added to the GitHub repository in a code commit. The plugin or theme files should be decompressed when they are added (i.e. not archived, like a *.zip format). Plugin files should be added to the repository’s /plugins directory, and theme files should be added to the /themes directory.

Once the files are committed to a repository and deployed to an environment, a plugin or theme can be enabled of disabled through the site’s WordPress Admin dashboard.

Plugins and themes on WordPress multisite

If your application is a WordPress multisite, an extra step is needed to make themes and plugins available to network sites and manageable by users on those sites with Administrator roles.

Typically only a user with a Super Admin role will initially have access to a theme or a plugin after it has been added to the application’s GitHub repository and deployed to the environment. Settings in the Network Admin dashboard must be updated by the Super Admin in order for plugins and themes to be available to sites on the multisite network.

Themes

A Super Admin can “network activate” a theme to make it an available option for every network site. Or, the Super Admin can selectively enable a theme for only 1 network site at a time. Once a theme is enabled for a network site, users with an Administrator role on that site have access to activate or deactivate the theme.

Go to WordPress.org’s documentation about theme enablement on multisites

Plugins

On a new WordPress multisite, the Plugins panel in the WordPress dashboard will not be accessible for any user role except for the Super Admin. If you want users with an Administrator role to be able to activate and deactivate plugins for individual network sites, the Super Admin must update a setting for the entire network.

In the Network Admin Setting’s panel, under “Menu Settings“, the Super Admin must toggle the “Enable administration menus” checkbox.

Similarly, a Super Admin can “network activate” a plugin from within the Network Admin dashboard. This action will not just make the plugin available to all network sites; it will also enforce activation of the plugin on every site.

Go to WordPress.org’s documentation about plugin activation on multisites

Plugin incompatibilities

Some plugins that you are accustomed to adding to your WordPress site might be unnecessary on WPVIP’s infrastructure. For example, plugins that add caching or are intended to enhance performance are redundant to WPVIP’s page cache layer and autoscaling that are already built in. Not only will the added plugins not work as expected, but adding these plugins can often have a negative affect on a site.

Plugin features that expect to have permission to create files or directories might also not work as expected. To increase the security of your site, web containers and the /wp-content directory are set to “read-only” mode. This protects your WordPress site by preventing bad actors from being able to add or execute malicious scripts.

If a plugin incompatibility is discovered, consider using an available WPVIP feature that offers the same or similar functionality, or seek an alternative plugin.

We recommend that you review some of the common plugin incompatibilities so that you can make informed decisions before adding plugins or custom functionality to your site.

Last updated: November 25, 2024