What's New✨

Starting today, when a new site is created, it’s configured with a SpinupWP subdomain:

You can instantly access your new site using the subdomain after site creation. And you can turn this subdomain off and on as often as you like from the Domains tab. Existing sites can enable/disable the subdomain from the Domains tab as well.

In addition, we’ve sped up the site creation process by removing the HTTPS and Additional Domains options. You no longer need to configure your DNS to point at your primary domain, enable HTTPS for your primary domain, or configure additional domains when creating a site. All of this can be done any time after the site is created and only when necessary. Creating a test site in SpinupWP has never been quicker!

As part of this, we’ve also updated the Create Site Rest API endpoint to reflect the new site creation process. In addition we added site update endpoints to manage HTTPS, the PHP version, and additional domains, with more site endpoints coming soon. See the Rest API docs for more details.

You might assume that the subdomain only works for WordPress sites, but we’ve actually implemented it in an Nginx config so it will work with static sites, Laravel apps, and any site really.

Previously, when SpinupWP notified you about available non-security server software updates, you would need to SSH into your server and manually run apt update && apt upgrade. Not ideal if you manage multiple servers or prefer to stay in the dashboard.

Now you can install non-security updates directly from the SpinupWP Assistant. When the “Non-Security Server Software Updates” todo appears, simply click Install Updates to open a confirmation modal and kick off the upgrade.

We recommend performing a full server backup before proceeding, and testing your sites after the updates are installed.

See the Server Software Updates doc for more details.

You can now manage PHP settings directly from your SpinupWP dashboard, eliminating the need to SSH into your server and manually edit configuration files.

We’ve added a new PHP tab for sites where you can change common settings like memory limits, timeouts and worker management.

We’ve also moved some things around. The Settings tab for sites has been removed and the PHP Version setting has been moved to the new PHP tab. The Public Folder setting has moved to the Nginx tab and the Basic Auth section has moved to its own tab.

In addition, we’ve added a new Nginx tab at the server level for corresponding settings, so that you can increase server timeout limits and upload size limits without needing to SSH into the server.

See the Changing PHP Settings doc for more details.

Previously, when updating WordPress plugins and themes from within SpinupWP, we only showed the number of updates available, leaving you to check the WordPress admin to find out exactly which ones would be updated.

Now when you open the update modal, you’ll see a Show link next to the plugin and theme count. Clicking it reveals a detailed list showing each plugin or theme, its current version, and the version it will be updated to. This makes it easy to review exactly what will be updated, and helps you assess the potential impact of updates.

Previously, any URL containing query string parameters would bypass the page cache. This meant that any traffic from marketing campaigns using tracking parameters such as utm_source, gclid, or fbclid always resulted in cache misses, a slow response time, and increased server load.

You can now specify which query string parameters should be ignored when serving cached pages. New sites will automatically ignore common tracking parameters by default. For existing sites, you can click the Reset to Default button on the Page Cache screen, or define your own list of parameters to ignore.

We’ve also added the option to configure cookie-based cache exclusions directly in the dashboard. Previously, only path exclusions could be managed from the dashboard, and customizing which cookies triggered a cache bypass required manually editing the Nginx configuration via SSH.

For more details, check out the Customizing Page Cache Exclusions doc.

SpinupWP now supports PHP 8.5. WP CLI has been updated on all customer servers to version 2.12.0.

When creating a new site or updating existing sites to use PHP 8.5, you can now select PHP 8.5 via the SpinupWP dashboard:

• From a site’s dashboard, select Settings from the left menu.
• Select PHP 8.5 from the drop-down menu.

We recommend testing on staging before switching any of your production sites to PHP 8.5.

In the rare case that you needed to install a custom HTTPS certificate for a site, you previously had to copy the certificate and private key files to the server via SCP or SFTP, SSH to the server with a sudo user, move the files to the proper folder, adjust the file ownership and permissions, and then provide the paths to those files in your SpinupWP dashboard:

An annoying process and lots of room for error. Now you can simply copy your certificate and private key and paste it into the fields in your SpinupWP dashboard:

SpinupWP will install the certificate and private key on your server. See the Custom HTTPS Certificate doc for more details.

Previously, if you manually made changes to the PHP-FPM pool configuration file, i.e.

/etc/php/{PHP_VERSION}/fpm/pool.d/{SITE_USER}.conf

you would have to manually make those changes again when switching the PHP version of the site. For example, if I had a site with site user turnipjuice and changed from PHP 8.3 to 8.4, I would manually have to update the PHP-FPM pool config file for PHP 8.4:

/etc/php/8.4/fpm/pool.d/turnipjuice.conf

However, now SpinupWP will automatically copy the PHP-FPM pool config file between PHP versions each time you switch PHP versions. For example, now if I switch from PHP 8.3 to 8.4, the PHP-FPM pool config file for PHP 8.3 will automatically be copied to PHP 8.4:

/etc/php/8.3/fpm/pool.d/turnipjuice.conf -> /etc/php/8.4/fpm/pool.d/turnipjuice.conf

Similarly, if I change the site back to PHP 8.3, SpinupWP will copy the PHP-FPM pool config from PHP 8.4 to 8.3:

/etc/php/8.4/fpm/pool.d/turnipjuice.conf -> /etc/php/8.3/fpm/pool.d/turnipjuice.conf

A UI to manage PHP-FPM pool settings is coming soon, so you won’t have to manually update config files for much longer. Stay tuned.

We’ve rewritten the following page cache actions and they now complete in less than half the time:

• Purge page cache
• Enable page cache
• Disable page cache
• Save page cache settings

We’ve also rewritten the “Correct file permissions” action and it should be at least twice as quick to complete as well.

We’ve rewritten the following service restart functions and they now complete in less than half the time:

• Restart Nginx
• Restart PHP-FPM
• Restart MySQL

We’ve also rewritten the server reboot function but it’s only a bit quicker.

You may notice that we’ve added a “Restart Redis” option as well.

You can now remove an old version of PHP from your server with a couple of clicks.

Previously, Assistant would let you know that an old version of PHP should be removed from your server, but you had to remove it manually.

If the old version of PHP is still running on some of your sites, Assistant will let you know and provide you with a way of updating all those sites to a newer version of PHP in one click.

Immediately after launching Todos we knew it wasn’t a great name for the feature. It was more than a todo list. It was coaching customers on how best to maintain their servers and sites. It deserved a name that conveyed this and so we’re now calling it Assistant.

In addition to renaming this feature, we’ve added some functionality. Previously, there were no notifications at all. It was up to you to visit the Todos screen regularly to keep an eye on things. Now a notification will appear in your in-app notifications when a todo escalates to Critical priority.

In addition, you can now receive a weekly or monthly email summarizing your prioritized todos and giving you a good idea of the status of your servers and sites.

This email replaces the server reboot notifications (email and in-app) that many have found annoying, including members of our team. 🙃

For more information, check out the Assistant doc.