WordPress MU

I'm trying to install MU as a subdomain of a site: http://artists.etsyglass.com and I'm running into problems. I can't change the directory to 777. Here's what my host says:
---
Jason: you can keep the permission at most 755
Jason: and not 777
Jason: because we have implemented PHPSuexec on server
Jason: so anything having 777 will give the internal server error
---
When I run the install it says that it can't find the .htaccess file and then I get this error "No WPMU site defined on this host."

I know that I can't use htaccess files either (I have to put the info in a php.ini file), so I'm wondering if this might also be part of the problem.

Will I be able to install MU at all or am I going to have to find a new host?

Yep, find a new host. Unless you like banging your head on your desk.

I'd find a new host. Shared hosting isn't recommended anyway.

Plenty of topics around here on hosting and such though. Anything within the last 6-8 months should still be relevant for the most part.

When looking for a host, make sure they allow and support wildcards in Apache's conf file, as well as DNS wildcards.

If it's a dedicated box, it isn't an issue (still check on the DNS wildcard if you're using their DNS tool), and "most" VPS accounts it isn't an issue either.

Shared hosting is a whole different ballgame.

MU "can" work without 777, but it won't work very well. There wouldn't be any capability for user uploads (for images and such), and you couldn't use any type of caching features either.

That alone will end up getting you kicked off a shared host, as MU is server level software that needs a certain amount of resources to do its job.

And by resources, we don't mean oodles of bandwidth and huge amounts of disk space, which they try to entice you with and you'll never use...

And if you do, they boot you anyway. So it's a lose/lose situation. Quite deceitful, yet it is common practice in the industry.

By resources, we mean memory, cpu cycles, etc. Which, when those resources have to be shared with hundreds and hundreds of other sites, causes issues when one site eats up even 30% of what's available.

Or even as low as 12%.

Or less, but yeah.

Thank you for the replies. Couple follow up questions:

1) Does the analysis change if there's a limited number of users who will have blogs? I'm looking at an upper limit of 40 users who are not going to be doing anything super sophistocated or posting more than once a day.

2) Image uploads work on the Wordpress install I currently have on the site. Does MU work differently or is there a possibility that image uploading could work on this server?

3) Wildcards is enabled - I had them do that today. Is there any kind of documentation that exists for installing without 777? I'd love to get at the very least a test site up and running so that I can figure out if MU fits our needs.

thanks again,
Lis

WPMU really doesn't work well on 99.9% of shared hosts no matter how many users you have.

You can get VPS accounts for around $15USD/Month if you look hard.

My advice would be to get a VPS for a month, if you decide WPMU isn't for you then you're only going to be out $15-20.

And it also will run locally on your computer. You know, if you want to just test it for nothing...

In my experience 777 permissions aren't required for WPMU for uploads (or any Wordpress files/directories for that matter). 770 is fine for the 'uploads' (files) directory.
It is important to distinguish world/other access from group access. When you are using the Wordpress file upload facility, it runs under whatever user your webserver (usually Apache) is running as. So if the uploads directory is writable by the webserver (via group access), that is fine.
From the codex: "Any file that needs write access from WordPress should be group-owned by the user account used by the webserver."

PHPsuexec presents some extra complications however. From what I have (briefly) read, PHPsuexec won't execute a php file with world write privileges, and in addition will not execute a php file in a directory with group or world write privileges. So permission on source directories (wp-admin, wp-includes) would need to be 750. WPMU operates fine with those permissions, so it doesn't seem there should be any reason why WPMU couldn't work with PHPsuexec. But that said, while I can say the permissions work for WPMU, I haven't tried PHPsuexec.