WordPress MU

Hey there,

I have been a user of wordpress (and before b2) for many years. I now have about 20 blogs running from a server, all separate WP installs.

Would it make very good sense to use just WP MU instead?

If so, how easy would it be to get 20 databases, files, themes and individual settings over to a MU install?

I also use a lot of plugins on my blogs, such as WP-Cache, would all these continue to function?

Many thanks for your help, and excellent products!
Matt

Plugins - Best bet would be to search the forums here for the specific plugin you're thinking of. Seems like we've covered most of them.

There is the internal object cache of course. Not sure if wp-cache would be needed on top of that.

Best bet would be to give it a shot yourself to be honest. Not sure how original your themes are or what plugins you've got in there. It's really a toss up. Transfering posts would be fairly easy though using the exporter and importer.

Thanks for the swift reply drmike, very much appreciated.

Glad I can make use of the exporter / importer, I thought as such.

Silly question, but would individual settings, such as permalink settings, base cats etc, be on a per blog basis?

Also would running a single install of WP MU with 20 blogs be more efficient performance wise for the server?

The thought of the server loading up 20 different copies of the same files many times over, WP MU seems a more efficient way to go and run things.

Also the upgrading of 20 individual blogs / plugins etc is a pain.

I run plesk on my server, would having a domain for each blog work fine with plesk and wp mu?

Many thanks for the help guys.

You and your endusers can set the permalinks on a blog specific basis. (wp.com removes this feature just for reference.)

Base cats are the normal ones for wordpress - blogroll and uncategoried. It's fairly each to add in defaults though. (Do a search for default categories as it's been discussed before)

Load is pretty much a toss up. I'd lean more towards keeping things upgraded.

There's a hack for using a single install of wordpress but for muliple sites. (I don't have that link handy. Someone will speak up though I'm sure.)

Here's a walkthru on the domain hosting workaround tyhat most of us are using:

http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic.php?id=3275

hope thi shelps,
-drmike

Many thanks drmike, you have been a great help.

I think i might have found a problem with the way I want to run things with MU. Some of my sites (blogs) (individual domains) also have other areas on the sites such as image galleries etc on folders away from the root (where the blog is). I think with the way the domain is pointed, this probably won't be possible.

I would be very interested in that link about running a single install of wordpress but for multiple sites :).

I did find something about that one time, symlinks or something. I might have to give that some more thought, maybe that would be a better solution for my situation.

Many thanks again drmike.
Cheers

This is what I found:
http://coderseye.com/2006/multi-blogging-for-wordpress-update.html

Is it the same thing you guys where thinking of?

Cheers!

You could still do it with WPMU, but you'll have to probably do .htaccess rewrites to redirect people to those folders.

I got a better idea.

My multiple domain hack

All your plugins will work, you keep the same databases (and settings, and all that jazz), and all your plugins will work too.

Pick a directory, put in WP 2.2.1, add all the domains as parked for the main domain, and you should be in business.

In a nutshell.

awww man, thats a whole lot of reading. can you use my login and hack it for me!

/pretending to be a noob
//using joke from another forum
///really mean it this time

// lo...... l

Aw, c'mon luna, he's got five bucks....

*ducks and runs*

Oh yeah? Well, I've got your $5 right here lady, and I'll be mailing it to Ron so he can buy a roll of Duck Tape.

:D Now you'll just be giving him ideas he doesn't need. :D

One morning, you'll be waking up with your hands duck taped into a point, and you'll have to hunt and peck on they keyboard... Muah ha ha ha ha ha....

Many thanks for the idea lunabyte, it seems great.

But unfortunately I don't think it will work for me. The sites I run are blogs, but some of them they also have other areas such as image galleries (eg: in root/gallery/) Where the blog is at the root.

If I parked all the domains to a single public html folder I wouldn't be able to maintain my structure for the rest of my sites.

I am tempted to use that link I found with symlinks, and symlink the wp-includes and wp-admin folders at least, as this is where most of the files are kept.

Any thoughts? many thanks.

When you say galleries, do you mean Gallery or just generic galleries? Because here's the thing:

If you use Menalto Gallery, there is no full compatibility with WPMU (yet). But you could use the WP-Gallery2 plugin and grant individual users access to their own individual albums. In theory that should work...

If the users who are using gallery and are using different types of gallery. See this example here:

<a href="
http://abunchofcars.com/slideshow/slideshow.html">http://abunchofcars.com/slideshow/slideshow.html

is the same thing as http://bui4ever.com/slideshow/slideshow.html.

Bui4ever.com being my main MU site and abunchofcars.com being a parked site using Dr. Mike's Domain Mapping technique.

Well Ma2t, I do have a few ideas.

You can do a few things here.

However, here is the overall problem. If you use MU, you're going to lose those galleries and directories too, because MU runs off a single set of files. Any user directory or subdomain is virtually created with mod_rewrite.

So the files are still going to be all in one directory, and you still end up with the same problem.

It seems like your main concern is plugins and compatibility. Pardon the term, but if your a "plugin whore", then you may find that many less popular plugins aren't completely MU compatible. You'd have to rewrite parts of them to correct the situation, and some may never fully work.

That being said, I assume your goal is to have less files to maintain and update. Which, either my recommendation for multiple WP sites (without losing anything) or using MU will accomplish this as they are both a single set of files to maintain, a single set of plugins, and a single set of themes.

Back to the problem of having a gallery, in say domain12.tld/gallery/, and in domain6.tld/gallery/ will be an issue with either one.

What "could" possibly be a solution is using Wordpress to map /gallery/ to a specific directory, or "cheating a bit". I've done this with a few programs, and while you have to pay attention, it can work.

Here's a brief overview of this.

Most programs have the capability (whether they say so or not) to move all the files to another directory, but sever from the main address. For example, I can put WP in /wp/, but serve it from /, and nobody is the wiser (with a few minor modifications).

What you could potentially do, is install the gallery into /gallery/user/, and in /gallery/ use an index.php file that simply checks the domain being called as /gallery/, and then include (not redirect to, but as in include_once) /gallery/user/index.php.

The resulting url would be domain.tld/gallery/, but the files are being served from /gallery/user/.

You would of course have to slightly tweak the setting of the install in each /user/ gallery, to make sure it knows it's main domain is domain.tld/gallery/, and not /gallery/user/, as well as that its file path (for includes and such) is /gallery/user/.

The physical url to an image would need to be /gallery/user/ though, but that's a minor detail as most images are pulled as part of a page and not linked to directly.

Then, there is another option, but you will run into a problem with physical image paths and such.

When it comes to galleries, I've only used a hand full. Of those, I've tended to use Coppermine more than anything.

The "best" solution I could think of is something that stores files in the users personal directory or something in WP (modifying the plugin to use path/user_id/ to keep it separate).

But, like I said, either with MU or my multiple domain hack, you're going to have the same problem with any subdirectories. That is, unless there is only 1 domain using that subdirectory, then it would be fine.

Thanks for the replies guys, I meant generic galleries, i use Coppermine mostly, and a little of 4images.

Many big thanks for the explanation lunabyte, you have been very helpful, and I appreciate your time! (and sorry for the long delay)

I have been giving the whole idea a lot of thought, and from your explanation and the whole "virtual" folder issues, I think that it would be far easier, and less risky for me to try and maintain a lot of my initial set up.

As a have a lot of "real" folders and many gig (17gig) of data, moving to MU would be too much of a risk, and hard work (I will most probably break something).

You are right about the main reason I want this. : reduce the amount of files(php) on the server, so updating it less of a pain.

tbh, I think what would make most sense for me is to keep things how I have them, but use the shortcut folders (symlinks) to cut down on the multiple folders.

I think link I posted earlier, they link all the wordpress files and folders together with some extra funky stuff for the individual config files. This could get some what tricky also.

So, my grand plan....

After looking at the wordpress install directory, there are 431 files, and 371 of these files are in the "wp-admin" and "wp-includes" folders.

If I were to point all my different domain install directories a "real" wp-admin and wp-include directories.

This would cut down on many of the files.

Right now I estimate that I have 20(blogs) x 431 files = 8620 total files.

If I were to link to ONE real copy of wp-admin and wp-includes there would only need to be...

20 (blogs) x 60 files = 120 files (plus the one copy of 371 files.

120 + 371 = 491 files!

491 sounds a hell of a lot better than 8620. I know this might not the the most efficient way, I will be duplicating my root WP folder and wp-content folder, but I can keep my "real" folders (galleries etc) and structure, with no complex multiple config etc.

I hope I made my idea clear, and I hope im not missing something stupid. (let me know if I am!)

Once again, many thanks lunabyte!
Cheers,
Matt

Would anyone care to comment on my idea? :)

I would just like to know if you think it is a good idea, or ... stupid lol. I am fairly new to server management etc.

It would be great to get a "nod" from some one here, who probably knows a lot more than myself!

Cheers,
Matt

Does not appear to be working :/. Just loads a blank page..

Am I creating the symlinks correctly?.

I want to a link from one of my blog roots to "wp-admin" and "wp-includes" (and it's files and sub folders of course) on another of my domains.

I have tried the following:

ln -s /var/www/html/real-wp/wp-admin/ wp-admin

and also,

ln -s /var/www/html/real-wp/wp-admin/* .

*feeling kinda stupid*

Surly linking to a real folder should be easy?
Thanks

I have tried a few more things, the files seem correct and show up in putty. But when I try to load my test area (wp-admin) I get either a blank page, or a forbidden message.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Without actually looking, it probably has to do with path that are generated internally. They create the path as the actual path to that file, and not the aliased path.

You could try to hard code these in there, but I don't know if it would work all the time.

Look for dirname(__FILE__), and see what comes up back there.

The one in the config file should be fine, that sets ABSPATH, but there might be more in the back.

Many thanks for your time lunabyte.

Damn I was hoping that linking just two folders would be simple.

Strange how when you symlink the whole wp folder it works with no problems (I have seen a few setups this way).

Oh well, many thanks again lunabyte, I think I might have to give up on the whole idea for now.

Hmmm, I'm still not convinced that the multiple site hack wouldn't work completely.

It might need a couple modifications to a few core files or something (for things like uploads, etc), but I still think it could work. Granted, it would take some work to get it set up, but once it was it would be smooth sailing.

Thanks lunabyte, when I have a little more time I will look / think things over again.
Cheers

Probably a good idea for now. You're up and running right now, and taking a little extra time to think it all out will create less downtime in the long run. You wouldn't want to go 1 way, then another, then another.

Exactly, im glad you agree. I hate going into things not 100%, and then regretting it just after starting, and it's already too late to go back.

Absolutely. Especially when MU is concerned, but that's a pet peeve of mine I guess.