Is there something specific you need to update for a particular reason?
I don't really need to know but you should ask this of yourself simply to make sure the risk vs reward makes sense. Some of the self help documents / procedures in the forum and help KB can be somwhat stale, misunderstood and potentially cause more work.
I just ran into that sort of situation with regard to the DA .1 & .2 updates recently..
First time addressing that for me and I followed some KB info about updating and ended up with non-funtional roundcube -- which seems to be a pain in the ass anyhow. Roundcube has sense been erradicated from my servers since I had other plans than jerking around with roundcube.
If you need php 6.x or some version besides 5.2.8 for a script you want to run then I believe you will need to edit /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/options.conf in order to adjust the version(s) you desire before running the commands you listed.
Code:
#PHP settings. default_php possible values - 5 or 6, php5_ver - 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 or 5.5
default_php=5
php5_ver=5.3
php5_cli=yes
php5_cgi=no
php6_cli=no
php6_cgi=no
php_ini=no
Getting back on track, if you want to follow any instructions which are in the context of logging into the server as root then that is referring to using the SSH service on the server via connecting remotely with an SSH client such as PuTTY (windows) or OpenSSH (Cygwin/Linux), etc.
This process results in a simple command prompt on your screen once logged into the server as root. So it can be somewhat intimidating if you don't know what to do next.
Since you're not familiar with using the linux shell -- what you'd be doing, then I'd suggest getting cygwin if you're using windows and learning a few things hands on first. You could then use openSSH in the cygwin linux emulator to connect to your server when you feel ready.
Basics like how to change directories, editing a file and so forth using the linux command prompt will be useful to know ahead of time.
Additionally, know that root access is something to guard. Direct login to your server as root should be disabled eventually if it's not already. Same goes for the admin account created by DA. Thus that is another question you'll want to know the answer to. If root login is disabled you will have to use an SSH client (PuTTY, cygwin/openssh, etc) to login as another user, then once logged on to the server you can then switch to root in order to do the updates you want to do.
If you've taken on the responsibility of administrating your own server then I suggest throttling back on the update for a little bit to help ensure you don't get stuck along the way.
cygwin will allow you to work with openssh, the linux command prompt and vim, the text editor which is probably installed already on your server.
If you have a mac then you can do the same pretty much by opening up a "terminal" window.
