Uly.me

cloud engineer

WP

Change WordPress URL

There are multiple ways to change URL in WordPress.

Here’s one via wp-config.php.

define( 'WP_HOME', 'http://example.com' );
define( 'WP_SITEURL', 'http://example.com' );

If you have a redirect in Apache, comment it out.

#Redirect permanent / https://yourdomain.com/

This is by far the easiest way to change URL in WordPress.

WordPress Critical Error

If you get a WordPress “There has been a critical error on your website” error, you probably have an issue with a theme or plugin. The quickest way to troubleshoot is to rename the plugins directory since there’s no way to login. This technically disables all plugins. Rename it back to plugins and enable each plugin one by one.

Disable all plugins.

mv plugins plugins-backup

Login and restore the plugins directory.

mv plugins-backup plugins

Enable each plugin one by one and check if the site is broken.

Disable Gutenberg

Two years ago, WordPress introduced Gutenberg block editor together with the release of WordPress version 5.0. Gutenberg essentially became the default editor starting with WordPress version 5.0. While many people love the Gutenberg editor, some people hate it. If you’re one of the many people who hate the Gutenberg editor, you can simply disable it by installing a plugin called Disable Gutenberg. This plugin will revert back to the classic editor.

Once installed, you should be able to see the Classic editor.

After working with Gutenberg for so long, I forgot the speed and agility of the classic editor. It’s much faster.

WordPress Read Only

Here’s how to create a WordPress site that’s read only. You will not be able to create, update and delete posts.

  1. Login to MySQL or MariaDB.
  2. Choose mysql database.
  3. Create a new user called ‘wpro’ for WordPress read only.
  4. Grant select permissions to all tables in ‘wordpress’ database.
  5. Flush privileges to commit your changes.
mariadb -u root -p
use mysql;
create user 'wpro'@'localhost' identified by 'yourpassword';
grant select on wordpress.* to 'wpro'@'localhost';
flush privileges;

In MySQL or MariaDB, you have to terminate all commands with a semicolon.

Now edit your WordPress wp-config.php file. vim /var/www/wordpress/wp-config.php.

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'wpro');
 
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpassword');

After saving the wp-config.php file, everything should work just like before, except that you will not be able to save, publish or delete posts, pages, or add or delete media files to your WordPress site. It’s working as intended.