WordPress MU

Okay, maybe I do not fully understand how MU works or how it is suppose to work. I just made a fresh installation of wordpress mu and I am curious how mu is suppose to work/ function. I installed the most recent version at a site I am working on - http://www.gastoncounty.info. I have gone through and created a subdomain "subdomain.gastoncounty.info" but it resolves back to the host company that supports my site.

Am I to do anything more than what I have done thus far? Do I need to put anything in the "subdomain" folder so that when someones goes to the site, a separate wordpress installation?

I have not been able to find exact documentation on this and any help is GREATLY APPRECIATED.

Thanks in advance,
Design Pastor

Have a look at README.txt in the download. This file spells out how DNS, VHOST, and Apache have to be configured. If you know that everything in the Read Me has been done and it still has trouble then check out http://trac.mu.wordpress.org/wiki/DebuggingWpmu for steps on troubleshooting.

It sounds like your vhost and DNS are not set up correctly. You want to make a new DNS entry for subdomain.gastoncounty.info and make sure wildcards are enabled for it. Then make a vhost entry in your httpd.conf with the DocumentRoot being subdomain.gastoncounty.info (or whatever the folder name is where you unzipped the MU files) and a ServerAlias *.subdomain.gastoncounty.info

kahless: thanks for the information. i did have a chance to look over the README.txt, but to be quite honest with you, i am not all so sure on how to access the APACHE or to create the DNS "wildcards".

Could anyone sort of make this a little easier to comprehend. I am not exactly a novice, but I am new to this aspect of things.

Thanks,
DesignPastor

When MU is set up correctly for wildcards it works like this:

- person signs up for a blog, picks a username
- everything gets saved to the database
- subdomain is NOT hard-created on the server.You do not have to create the subdomains on your server. They will never be there, they are handled by the database. That's why they call it virtual. :)

- when someone visits a blog on your system, the guts of the system tell it to pull info from the database and display it in the browser. Just like the regular WP, most of the files don't actually exist in a directory on the server somewhere.

Kinda mind-blowingly cool actually.

You need to install it at gastoncounty.info actually. The 'www' bit is messing stuff up for you. That's the domain it needs to work off of. If you install it with the 'www', then it will try to add in the subdoamins to that.

For example:

mysubdomain.www.gastoncounty.info.

You can find a quick how to on how to add in teh wildcard support here. You're going to need to get your host involved for it. It's probably not something you have access yourself to do.

Once that's setup though, that's all you need to do for DNS wildcards. Everything else is handled by the server and WordPressMU.

DesignPastor - just contact customer support for your host and ask them to enable wildcard subdomains on your account/domain.

That should do it. :)

drmike: actually i do need to mess with it and i do have full ROOT access to anything.

i am also the host of the site. i have a dedicated server running all the sites i create and administer.

so, that is why i stated i am not exactly a novice, but i do need to learn how to access the things to get everything running.

i will reference what you have linked for me and thanks a bunch for the HELP!

anything more?

Cross your fingers and pray. :)

Actually there was a thread way back somewhere that did detail the steps to enable wildcards. Try the right search link instead of the one above:
http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/search.php

do i have to use PUTTY to login to make the changes that I have read about to APACHE?

i am using a PLESK 7.5 RELOADED INTERFACE for domain management.

i have created the subdomain to gastoncounty.info .... the actual SUBDOMAIN i am trying to get working is "http://willgraham.gastoncounty.info" ... anyone who can HELP ... I would greatly appreciate it.

(By the Way, Will Graham, the grandson to Christian Evangelist Billy Graham is doing his first US crusade in our county - GASTON COUNTY, NC - and i would really like to have this working by end of the week.

So anyone who can help, please let me know.

God Bless,
DP

Yes, you can use Putty to connect with your box. I do not know with Plesk if you can make the modifications on the backend but you can make them from a command prompt via Putty. (Plesk may overwrite them though at some time down the future.)

You don't create each individual subdomain. What you need to do is create a DNS wildcard as per that link I gave you earlier. Please read that post as it explains what you need to do.

You're going to have to contact your host anyway. You're doing something funky with your DNS and you've got a nameserver not even responding. There's some serious issues with your DNS as well. I can't even tell if your box has control over your DNS.

still don't iknow how to truly setup the wildcard thing =
had a previous installation with virtialhost set to "yes" but nothing in the wildcard set, the site worked, but of course everything was without www. and the endslash had to be there, without that in the url, user gets 404 page.
I need to re-install clean and before I do this, I need to know exactly what is required for me to do:
I have currently[locally] the last nightly unzipped and stuck the wp-admin, wp-content, wp-iclude in to a folder named "blogs" where the wp php files are of course.

Am still confused what the difference is for actually creating a subdomain on my server versus not doing that - regarding the installation and if not creating manually a subdomain, do I still need wildcard as in %blogs ?
installing MU in to the directory "blogs" within the root directory - what will the homepage url be and further, what will user cretaed blog url be?

Would very much appreciate if someone could explain to me these results.
Am not a total newbie - just have never had to know these things before, although I run 16 websites, own the server hosting - but never needed to do this before but my programmer who usually maintains and configures these things has terrible car crash and is out of commission at least for the next 3 months.

Am really desperate to get MU working properly.
Thanx for any advise.
ps: the first installation was kind of a test for me, it all worked except the email notification to a user with activatio [password etc] never got there.
Need to avoid at least these pitfalls at the new clean install.

activebiz:

If you stick the install in the /blogs/ directory, then the main URL will be http://yourdomain.com/blogs/. A user's blog would be http://username.yourdomain.com/blogs/.

If you install MU in the root directory, you get your main blog at yourdomain.com, and with vhosts ON, your users get username.yourdomain.com. With vhosts off, your users get yourdomain.com/username/.

If the htaccess is set up correctly, it doesn't matter if someone types in the WWW or not, it'll get stripped and blogs will still show up. (Remember, the subdomain replaces the WWW. If your domain doesn't work without the WWW, whoever set it up is behind the times.)

For makins sure the endslash has to be there, it should have been in the htacess. If it wasn't you'll have to search the forums to find it.
http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/search.php is the correct URL.

As for why you don't need to create a subdomain or folder on the server, please READ my previous post in this thread (scroll up http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic.php?id=1450&replies=11#post-7849). Yes, vhosts seems confusing, but it works.

And some handy tips - you are more likely to get some real help if you :
a) post about your specific problems in a new thread
b) WAIT for someone to answer.
:)

Dear Andrea,
thank you soooo much for your detailed answer. Really appreciate it.
LOL
Michele

Hi, I have installed wpmu as a subdirectory. But when i add the new user or blog then auto create the subdirectory. That is fine but not working when i assign this url. Suppose, http://localhost.localdomain/wpwordpress/ working for admin user but not working :http://localhost.localdomain/wpwordpress/rafiq there rafiq is new .

Please help me how i will solve this problem.

bye(Rafiq)