WordPress:Installing WPMU
WordPress MU, or WordPress Multi User
WordPress MU, or WordPressµ, is the multi-user version of the WordPress blogging application, that allows you to run hundreds of thousands of blogs with a single install of WordPress, and is most famously used for WordPress.com.
Installing WordPress MU
Adapted from WordPress:Installing_WordPress:
1. Download and unzip the WordPress MU package, if you haven't already. The unzipped files will be created in a directory named "wordpressmu" followed by a version or "wpmu" followed by a date.
For the sake of convenience, rename this folder "wordpressmu" before continuing.
2. Create a database for WordPress MU on your web server, as well as a !MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.
3. Place the WordPress MU files in the desired location on your web server:
- If you want to integrate WordPress MU into the root of your domain (e.g. http://example.com/), move or upload all contents of the unzipped WordPress MU directory (but excluding the directory itself) into the root directory of your web server.
- If you want to have your WordPress MU installation in its own subdirectory on your web site (e.g. http://example.com/blogs/), rename the directory wordpressmu to the name you'd like the subdirectory to have and move or upload it to your web server. For example if you want the WordPress MU installation in a subdirectory called "blog", you should rename the directory called "wordpressmu" to "blogs" and upload it to the root directory of your web server.
4. Run the WordPress MU installation script by accessing index.php in your favorite web browser.
- If you installed WordPress MU in the root directory, you should visit: http://example.com/index.php
- If you installed WordPress MU in its own subdirectory called blogs, for example, you should visit: http://example.com/blogs/index.php
- If you're upgrading, skip to the end of this document.
- If you fill in the form and get a blank page, with no errors logged, the first thing to check is that you have php-mysql installed.
On Fedora and Centos: yum install php-mysql. On RedHat: up2date php-mysql.
HTTP Server : Apache
Apache must be configured so that mod_rewrite works. Here are instructions for Apache 2. Apache 1.3 is very similar.
1. Make sure a line like the following appears in your httpd.conf LoadModule rewrite_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_rewrite.so 2. In the <Directory> directive of your virtual host, look for this line "AllowOverride None" and change it to "AllowOverride FileInfo Options" 3. In the <VirtualHost?> section of the config file for your host there will be a line defining the hostname. You need to add the following if you want virtual hosts to work properly: "ServerAlias *.domain.tld". Replace domain.tld with whatever your one is, and remove the quotes.
Rewriting Rules for others HTTP Server
Lighttpd
Rewriting method: (best)
url.rewrite-once = ( "^/(.*)?/?files/$" => "index.php", "^/(.*)?/?files/(.*)" => "wp-content/blogs.php?file=$2", "^/(wp-.*)$" => "$1", "^/([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-.*)" => "$2", "^/([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$" => "$2", "(\?.*)$" => "index.php$1", "." => "index.php" )
Without rewriting method:
server.error-handler-404 = "/index.php"
Source:
Nginx
rewrite ^.*/files/(.*) /wp-content/blogs.php?file=$1
if (!-e $request_filename) {
rewrite ^.+/?(/wp-.*) $1 last;
rewrite ^.+/?(/.*\.php)$ $1 last;
rewrite ^(.+)$ /index.php?q=$1 last;
}
Source:
DNS
If you want to host blogs of the form http://blog.domain.tld/ where domain.tld is the domain name of your machine then you must add a wildcard record to your DNS records. This usually means adding a "*" hostname record pointing at your webserver in your DNS configuration tool. Matt has a more detailed explanation: http://ma.tt/2003/10/wildcard-dns-and-sub-domains/
PHP
For security reasons, it's very important that PHP be configured as follows:
- Don't display error messages to the browser. This is almost always turned off but sometimes when you're testing you turn this on and forget to reset it.
- GLOBAL variables must be turned off. This is one of the first things any security aware admin will do. These days the default is for it to be off!
- If you want to restrict blog signups, set the restrict domain email setting in the admin.
The easiest way of configuring it is via the .htaccess file that is created during the install. If you haven't installed WPMU yet then edit the file htaccess.dist in this directory and add these two lines at the top:
php_flag register_globals 0 php_flag display_errors 0
This is NOT included in that file by default because it doesn't work on all machines. If it doesn't work on your machine, you'll get a cryptic "500 internal error" after you install WPMU. To remove the offending lines just edit the file ".htaccess" in your install directory and you'll see them at the top. Delete and save the file again. Read here for how to enable this: http://ie.php.net/configuration.changes
If you don't want to edit your .htaccess file then you need to change your php.ini. It's beyond the scope of this README to know exactly where it is on your machine, but if you're on a shared hosted server you probably don't have access to it as it requires root or administrator privileges to change.
If you do have root access, try "locate php.ini" or check in:
/etc/php4/apache2/php.ini /usr/local/lib/php.ini
Once you have opened your php.ini, look for the sections related to register_globals and display_errors. Make sure both are Off like so:
display_errors = Off register_globals = Off
You'll have to restart Apache after you modify your php.ini for the settings to be updated.
Upgrading
Please see this page for instructions on upgrading your install: http://trac.mu.wordpress.org/wiki/UpgradingWpmu
Support Forum and Bug Reports
Please read http://trac.mu.wordpress.org/wiki/DebuggingWpmu before asking any questions. Without all the information required there we'll just ask for it anyway or worse, your request will be ignored.
http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/
Trac is our bug tracking system. Again, please read the above link before submitting a bug report: http://trac.mu.wordpress.org/report/1
You can login to both sites using your wordpress.org username and password.