WordPress MU

I have a handful of WP blogs, for myself and a few of my friends, and each is a separate installation of WP 2.0. I've batted around the idea of consolidating them into a single WPmu setup, as that would make maintenance on my part easier. Are plugins and themes for WP2.0 compatible with the MU version of WordPress? Would I be able to offer people abilities to customize their blogs, but be able to control plugins and spam filtering things for everyone from one control panel?

Finally, how close is WPmu to the current WP version? WP2.1 just came out - does WPmu reflect those changes? Thanks!

WPMu is running bleading edge 2.2 code for the most part. Donncha keeps it up to date. wordpress.com as well is running the 2.2 code so it's pretty stable.

You may want to skim the other threads and subforums for feedback on themes. You would be the site admin with control over the plugins and themes.

My concern is that WPMu is server farm level software. A basic knowledge of PHP, MySQL and the ability to edit a file once in a while is needed. If you can do that, you should be fine.

It would probably be overkill though for a "handful" of blogs though.

Thanks for the info. After posting I searched a little deeper and am finding out some answers. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty, and have had to with classic WP before. Mainly, it's a pain to have to upload 6 copies of themes, 6 copies of plugins, when there's an update I have to update and run the update 6 times....it'd be nice to handle all of that from one place, and just let my friends focus on their content.

I've installed it and am playing with it....I'm going to see if I can move my own personal blog over, database, files, etc., and if that works, then I'll see about doing everyone elses. Thanks again!

MU really is overkill for just 6 sites. But it would work.

As a note though, make sure you upgrade to 2.1 before exporting, if you haven't already.

Mainly because there's a few db field changes from 2.0.x -> 2.1

Hrm....I'll have to play with it some more tonight. I went from 2.0.5 to mu 1.0 by recreating the db tables (generated SQL from phpmyadmin, then ran it against the new db after changing naming scheme) and everything seems to be there and working. Thought it did look like had I gone from 2.1-->mu, I could have exported and imported the posts and whatnot?

One thing I'm running into - how do you migrate uploaded files from single WP to mu? The structure looks similar, I just need to move my 2006, 2007 directories under uploads to the blogs.dir/2/files folder. However, the permissions are such that I can't modify/create/delete anything in those directories. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll need to have my host change the owner of those folders to my user so I can mess with them, unless there's a better way. Thanks for all the help!

Well, yeah a bit of a sledgehammer for 6 sites, but if he can get past the install... ;) the rest should be a breeze. Sounds like ed knows what he's doing (yep, need to change ownership on those folders.)

Ive already figured out how to use MU on site that would have a maximum of 13 blogs. Unless we (Canuckistan) decide to create another province/territory. :D

Haha thanks for all the info :-) Yeah, it's probably a bit overkill, but ya gotta start somewhere, right? Maybe I'm just too lazy...I guess I could not bother to maintain everyone's separate installs...ah well.

I think I've got the process down from my personal blog. i upgrade my standalone from 2.0.5 to 2.1 without problems. I thought I could use the new RSS export/import things, but no go. The export worked fine, but when trying to import it said the php.ini file was limiting the upload size; my exported file was too big. No biggie, though...I exported to SQL via phpmyadmin, changed things around so the table names fit into the WPmu version, changed some paths, etc., and I think it will work. It took a few tries, and once my host gives me permissions to the blogs.dir folder, I'll try moving my uploaded images and see what happens.

Fun stuff, and I think the WPmu is really cool....I get those errors that have been posted when created a new blog, but sounds like that may be fixed soon. Heh, maybe I'll have to open my site up so anyone can use it - we'll see!

"I get those errors that have been posted when created a new blog, but sounds like that may be fixed soon."

It has been - check the trac.
http://trac.mu.wordpress.org/