How to Enable Automatic Background Updates for WordPress Core

The following process works with all WordPress versions after version 3.7. There are several other options for enabling automatic background updates for WordPress including but not limited to: utilizing Jetpack with WordPress.com and utilizing WordPress plugins.

For a refresher on editing files with vim see: New User Tutorial: Overview of the Vim Text Editor

Navigate to your root WordPress directory (in this case: /home/example/public_html) and edit the wp-config.php file:

vim wp-config.php

or

vim /home/example/public_html/wp-config.php

Add the following to the file:

/* Enable Automatic Background Updates for WordPress Core */
define( ‘WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE’, true );

In this case, I added the above code just above:

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Then exit and save the file with the command :wq .