- It was a rainy night in NYC
I’m getting closer to getting the WordPresss Multisite feature to work for hosting multiple domains with one install.
I went to the WordPress NYC Meetup group last night since they were discussing the features of WordPress 3.0 including Multisite.
As an aside, I’d like to mention that it was a very impressive lecture put on by Steve Bruner and Boone Gorges — both of them know their stuff and know how to explain it. If you’re in the NY area and developing with WordPress I highly recommend this group.
Ah… but as to my particular install problem… not so much insight. I did learn that what I want to do is rather simple compared to what a lot of people in the room are doing.
My goal is to run all the websites I have now with just me as the single user running on a single install of WordPress. It shouldn’t be any particular extra stress on web server resources to do it that way vs. separate installs, but I’ll be able to roll out WordPress updates and plugin features across all my sites with a single button — and thus make it a lot easier to make sure that I always have all security updates in place. Otherwise setting up an additional website is about 10 minutes of “install work” followed by a lifetime of daily maintenance.
So the plan is to get Multisite working and handling all my different domains. And here’s what I’ve got so far:
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Argh.
Eventually I get up to the point where the domain mapping plugin tells me:
Please uncomment the line //define( ‘SUNRISE’, ‘on’ ); in your /home/mydomain/public_html/mydomain/wp-config.php
But there isn’t a line with that define in my config.php — which may be because the directions are written for WPmu and not WordPress 3 ? Read the rest of this entry »
WordPress 3.0 Multisites is the indirect solution to so many security and maintenance problems.
I love the ability to rapidly create a beautiful website by installing WordPress and adding a theme. Create a few pages and WordPress handles all the navigation links. Want a contact page? Just add a plugin and you’ve got a contact for with CAPTCHA or whatever other protection you want.
However, creating a WordPress site — even a static one — requires regular maintenance: logging in and running upgrades to WordPress and to the plugins. If you don’t, eventually you’ll be bitten by some security hole. And when that happens — ick!
So what happens is:
You have one blog running WordPress. You log in regularly and maintain it. OK.
You add another site. Pretty! And another. And suddenly you’ve got THREE sites to log into and maintain.
And you build a quick blog site for a friend who doesn’t know computers. And a static site on a topic you have a few things you want to write about. And suddenly running maintenance and plugin upgrades becomes a full-time job.
And you want to do a few extra security upgrades? Lock down the log in page or make it stop giving out hints? Or any other brilliant touch for extra security? Suddenly, you have to do it FOR EVERY site you have running WordPress (especially those sites that are static which you would otherwise not have even looked at for another few months or years).
But now… WordPress 3.0 with MultiSites (Multi-sites? Multi sites? I have to check the spelling) TADA!
You can have ONE WordPress install that you maintain and upgrade and do all the wonderful security tricks you want and use that ONE install to run ALL your sites. Suddenly maintenance drops to JUST ONE central WordPress install to maintain. Having 50 domains on a variety of topics is a breeze!
Ah… but to get it to work. That I haven’t figured out yet. But I’m working on it.
