Question about automatically updating wordpress plugins

Is the server that is hosting my wordpress blog required to have an FTP server running in order to use the automatic update feature?

I recently moved this domain to a VPS with linode.com and one of the big things I want is ‘NO FTP SERVER’. I do all my transfers to and from the server using scp.

I refuse to add an ftp server for this one nice feature. Guess I need to find out if one is required, or if there are alternatives, or do I just have to upgrade my plugins the old fashion way.

Some tweaking going on

I’ve been doing quite a bit of work on the backend side of the blog lately. Including, but not limited to, installing many new wordpress plugins, a new theme and style, and some overall code tweaking. One side effect I’ve noticed is that my feed has been showing items as new again even though they’ve been read. If you’ve noticed that too and it bugs you, I apologize. I’m still working with a new ‘tags’ plugin which may mess with the feed a few more times. So things will will return to normal.