install.php re-appearing on site

  • I have a few WordPress sites, and after installation I have always deleted the /WP-ADMIN/INSTALL.PHP as a security measure.

    A year or two later, and INSTALL.PHP is back in the /WP-ADMIN/ folder.

    Is this normal? Is it added during WordPress version updates? Is there a way to prevent this file from being reloaded to the site?

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    Yes, it’s installed during an update. It does no harm to have it there.

    Thread Starter JPecsenyicki

    (@jpecsenyicki)

    So it’s not a security risk?

    Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    No. If you hit it it says “WordPress is already installed”.

    Thread Starter JPecsenyicki

    (@jpecsenyicki)

    I had a very strange situation today where users were briefly redirected to:

    https://www.mysite.com/wp-admin/install.php

    And it DID give the Language Options menu. So it looked like it was trying to reinstall WordPress from scratch. Had me pretty scared that a user might create a new username / password & lock me out.

    (I later learned that this happened while the database briefly went down on the server.)

    check wp_config.php maybe the table prefix is not right

    Thread Starter JPecsenyicki

    (@jpecsenyicki)

    I don’t know. Once the database came back up, the redirect to the install page disappeared and the site works perfectly now.

    At any rate, I’m now using an HTACCESS rule in the root directory to deny access to the install file:

    ##########################################################
### PREVENT ANYONE FROM RUNNING INSTALL.PHP IN /WP-ADMIN/
##########################################################
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/?wp-admin/install\.php$ - [F,L]
    • This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by JPecsenyicki.
Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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