WordPress is famous for its 5 minutes few click installation. But most of the bloggers experience that WPMU installation is not easy. Many of the wordpress users face problem while installing wordpress MU or when trying to make it work for sub domain blogs.
WordPress MU has all the steps as same as installing wordpress, all you have to do extra is some tweaks in server settings. Many stuck in this step. The people install wpmu in dedicated server don’t face problem if they follow the steps in wordpress mu blog for installation.
This for people who would like to install WPMU in shared or vps servers. The problem here is some of the users don’t have permission to edit httpd.conf file in their server and some don’t have rights to edit DNS settings. If this is your problem in installing WPMU in your hosting account then just follow the simple tweak given below.
All you have to do is just add a sub domain as follows in your hosting account with the help of cPanel, Plesk or other server tools that you have. Go to ‘add sub domain’ menu not ‘add on domains’ then add ‘*’ sub domain redirecting it to the root.
click “sub domain” -> “add” -> enter ” * ” without quotes in sub domain name -> enter “public_html/” in directory text box without quote, then add it.
after adding you should get a subdomain like below in the sub domain list
*.yourdomain.com not redirected pointed to public_html/
optional : so if you want to install wpmu in other shared add on domain then simple enter that domain name like below,
*.addondomain1.com pointing to public_html/addondomain1.com/ where wpmu is installed.
Your tweak is finished and now you are ready to go with you wpmu. Read fully to know more…
If you still have problem I am glad to help you if you post a comment here.
Don’t worry about other settings like <virtualhost> settings in httpd.conf and adding data in DNS settings. Everything is optional. The above tweak works fine with all the hosting services without much work.
Note : How it works?
wordpress mu is handling multiple blogs with same wordpress files which is installed in the root directory. when we enter the blog name like “blog1.alvistor.com” it searches for files in blog1.alvistor.com, all that we have to do is to redirect the blog1.alvistor.com to “alvistor.com” so to do this for every sub domain blog like blog2.alvistor.com, blog3, blog4, etc we to add a redirect for every blog.
Just by adding a * as a subdomain ( * is a wild card here) every alphabets and numbers are assigned for * and all the blogs are directed to root directory. Now simply wpmu handles the others.
However this will not work for media upload in wordpress post editings, to avoid media upload issue in wpmu please check out the posts in related posts.
Written by Sakthi Tharan (tharansakthi)
About Author: A professional blogger, writes on blogging and other various web trends and activities that relates to blogging. His articles are more strategical than being more technical.
great share, great article, very usefull for me…thank you
Hi i have shared hosting i have created * subdomain but it gives me error
page does not redirect properly
you should have only one redirection first, to make it work properly first. Do not change any other settings regarding this.
only follow the two steps, add sub domain *.yourdoamin.com and .htaccess change
For wordpress MS 3.0 and above, use the below code in .htaccess…
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
#uploaded files
RewriteRule ^(.*/)?files/$ index.php [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !.*wp-content/plugins.*
RewriteRule ^(.*/)?files/(.*) wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$2 [L]
# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^.*/wp-admin$
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule . – [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-.*) $2 [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ $2 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
Nice content. Thank you for your information.
Hello
Looking forward to your next post