WordPress MU

This is continuation of the discusion on the old forums, on how to use a subdomain (blogname.domain.com) for each blog, rather than a directory.

I'm working on updating and testing my suggestions with the newest versions of WPMU, and am considering offering to code them into the application in a more thorough way. In the meantime, a quick reply to sallam and others:

Yes, you do need to seperately add a DNS record. There is no way for Wordpress to interface with your DNS (or at least, no easy way). I don't know cPanel, but on some systems it's possible to add a wildcard DNS entry, along the lines of "*.yourdomain.com", which will then work for any blogs you create. The problems people have been seeing are a result of this DNS entry not existing.

Then mike's suggestions (on the last page of the other forum's thread) on how to remove the "www" look reasonable, but I haven't tested them myself yet.

I was wondering how you were going to carry on with this one.

Cheers

Most systems I've dealt with that use subdomains as a variable just use an A record wildcard with a low TTL. Some DNS servers (*cough* BIND) start to act funny when their files get several megabytes big.

You obviously haven't used Plesk. :)

To enable it on a FC/Plesk box there is a series of modifications needed to enable it.

Finally I think I've got it all and am about to test it.

Upon success, for those on Plesk servers I'll make the information available.

I'm interested in this subdomains plugin, where can i grab more informations ?

gnukerman - if you would like someone else to help with testing on Plesk feel free to contact me cohen dot dave at gmail dot com. Plesk is a great CP, but a major PIA when it comes to working with subdomains...

paulcook, how we made now subdomains? I tried to make you say in http://blogs.linux.ie/support/topic.php?id=12&page=1#post-620 with some modifications because they change code (I see that add your code), but I can't success :(

Say, please, change I .htaccess from root directory?

Can you say all steps to make subdomains?

Thank you very much.

PIA? No doubt, but we are witholding any further advertised testing of WPMU for the moment.

Feel free to contact me should you wish to test it on a closed system.

Al - virtual hosts works in the latest "unstable" version. Check it out if you're interested!

I used mod_vhost_alias w/apache2.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/vhosts/mass.html

strixy, does that hack allows me to create a blog with a subdomain?

Thanks

Sorry for the delay in responding.

It does, but you will have to manually edit your /etc/apache2/sites-available/default file. (If you're using apache2. OR /etc/apache/http.conf (or httpd.conf depending)

Something like this should get you started, though you might want to add something in for error logging.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain.com
ServerName sub.domain.com
ServerAlias sub.domain.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/path/to/subdomain
<Directory /var/www/path/to/subdomain>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn
</VirtualHost>
You will also need to make sure your mod_vhost is installed in apache2/mods-enabled/
(you can use apt-get / synaptic)

I forget what it is in apache 1.3.x

The part that will break your whole site is that you probably installed your wordpress as domain.com/wordpress

So after you are done configuring yoru mod_vhost you will also have to reconfigure yoru config.php to reflect the change in URL. You can, however, do a pre-emptive change with the admin pages URL changing feature. OR setup your vhost first and then install WP.

Did I forget anything? Hope not. Good luck.

How can I do something like xozel http://www.xozel.com, where users can subscribe for a blog with nice urls? For instance: http://myblog.xozel.com.

I've got a preliminary working, but there are a couple of things that need to be edited. Besides, if anyone could do it, that would really take the bottom out of blog hosting as a business. Sounds like fun.

ejardim - try the unstable wpmu release. vhosts is already working in that.

Donncha, I have updated a nightly version (2005-07-26): it runs fine. We should give you good news sometimes...
So I want more !
What I do not understand is: why VHOST runs fine with a subdomain ? and why it does not with another domain name ?
I modified the blog name to fit the URI. So did I on the DNS setup that point to the right directory (the error message comes from the WPMU scripts).
It is probably the way the blog URI is parsed... Can you help me ?

Donncha - I'm trying unstable version since one week (nightly builds) and it doesn't work installation for me. I think I have too this problem: http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic/98

I would like to ask you about control version development, to see if changes makes work my installation and because I like to study this code (I like it very much!), and perhaps I would like to collaborate. I see this subversion for WordPress (normal):

http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/trunk

And this for WordPress (MU or Smarty??):

http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress-smarty/trunk

How you do development? Checkout WP normal and then WP smarty? In the same directory? I don't understand this.

And another question: how affects changes in new tags-templates in smarty WPMU? I think we still use smarty, it isn't?

Thank you very much and sorry for the multiple questions in the same post.

I was thinking running each blog as a separete domain. Is that possible with WPMU?

If subdomains are ok, it looks to me that multi-domain setup would be possible too? Isn't it?