WordPress autoupdate via SSH

So, it did bother me that my new shiny WordPress has an autoupdate option yet the only choices were FTP and FTPS… Since I try to avoid FTP wherever I can, I really hoped for ssh/sftp support. Looks like WordPress supports this too! A bit hidden, but it’s there.

To enable it, you have to install the ssh extension for PHP. The following instructions apply to Gentoo Linux:

1. Install PEAR
#emerge PEAR-PEAR

2. Install the ssh pecl extension
#pecl install ssh2-beta

3. Enable the ssh extension
#vi /etc/php/apache2-php5/php.ini
# extension=ssh2.so

Restart apache and voila: