WordPress MU

I have been trying to install wpmu on a new server. I installed it on a server several years ago but this has me stumped after trying various solutions found on forums and google.

I am installing on a brand new SUSE 10.1 VM set on a spiffy new server. It is the only VM on the machine. A regular WP goes up fine. I suspect I am missing something in the way SuSe has split the Apache2 files into about 6 different files/directories/yast templates. The school network also doesn't allow 5th level subdomains and this server name is assigned 4th level for now (aaa.bbb.ccc.tld). Downloaded the latest.tar.gz on

I curled it into my temp folder and copied and untarred it in it's final location. I did not open/copy the wp-config.php file.

Apache 2.2.3prefork/Php 5.2.5/Mysql 5.026 | Globals off | Variables_order GPCS | Safe Mode off | Mod rewrite loaded

A db has been created and remains empty. There are no .htaccess files in the directory and this is being done by command line.

installed in this directory
drwxrwxrwx wwwrun www blogs/

the blogs/wp-content/ has same permissions. blogs/* is owned by the correct uid/gid

Relevant excerpts
File:httpd.conf

<Directory />
    Options None
    AllowOverride None
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
</Directory>
Include /etc/apache2/default-server.conf
Include /etc/apache2/vhosts.d/*.conf

File: default-server.conf

<Directory "/srv/www/htdocs">
Options None
AllowOverride FileInfo Options

File:yast2_vhosts.conf

<VirtualHost ###.##.##.##>
 DocumentRoot /srv/www/htdocs/
 ServerAdmin mcrawley@aaa.bbb.tld
 <Directory /srv/www/htdocs/>
  AllowOverride FileInfo Options
  Order allow,deny
  Allow from all
 </Directory>
 ServerName aaa.bbb.ccc.tld
 ServerAlias *.aaa.bbb.ccc.tld
</VirtualHost>

When I go to the url, I get this:

No WPMU site defined on this host. If you are the owner of this site, please check Debugging WPMU for further assistance.

/var/log/apache2/error log shows:

[Wed Sep 03 16:48:15 2008] [error] [client 165.91.31.206] PHP Warning:  constant(): Couldn't find constant VHOST in /srv/www/htdocs/blogs/wp-settings.php on line 100
[Wed Sep 03 16:48:15 2008] [error] [client 165.91.31.206] PHP Warning:  constant(): Couldn't find constant VHOST in /srv/www/htdocs/blogs/wpmu-settings.php on line 33

It's nice to see someone post detailed info when they get that error. Anyway, you say the database is empty and wp-config isn't created yet? The vhost constant is defined in wp-config, shown in the example wp-config, so maybe that's the problem.

Whoops - I left out that the wp-config.php was never created. I meant to say I left the wp-sample-config.php file alone.

Sounds like you just need to reup all the files and try to install again.

Mostly delete the htaccess file and re-install.

Andrea - which htaccess file? There isn't one in the folder. Or are you talking about the one that creates them?

If you don't see one via ftp, then it's hidden from your view. Can you look at the files on the server some other way to delete it?

Andrea - I am not accessing it by ftp. I am doing everything command line via ssh.
Here is my dir:

'drwxrwxrwx 5 wwwrun www 1088 Sep 2 11:43 .
drwxr-xr-x 9 mcrawley www 1072 Sep 3 16:44 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 7636 May 23 10:10 README.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 1406 Jun 22 2006 favicon.ico
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 655 Aug 22 09:50 htaccess.dist
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 22123 Aug 22 11:50 index-install.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 398 Jun 13 12:21 index.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 15127 Jun 22 2006 license.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 4351 Aug 25 06:15 wp-activate.php
drwxr-xr-x 7 wwwrun www 2864 Sep 2 11:43 wp-admin
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 34072 Aug 13 10:13 wp-app.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 556 Jun 13 12:21 wp-atom.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 563 Aug 11 06:17 wp-blog-header.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 3091 Jun 24 12:00 wp-comments-post.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 626 Jun 13 12:21 wp-commentsrss2.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 2597 Jul 21 10:55 wp-config-sample.php
drwxrwxrwx 5 wwwrun www 192 Sep 2 11:43 wp-content
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 1258 Jun 13 12:21 wp-cron.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 661 Jun 13 12:21 wp-feed.php
drwxr-xr-x 5 wwwrun www 2456 Sep 2 11:43 wp-includes
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 1986 Jun 13 12:21 wp-links-opml.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 1677 Jul 28 10:11 wp-load.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 19107 Jul 23 08:36 wp-login.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 6405 Jun 13 12:21 wp-mail.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 488 Jun 13 12:21 wp-pass.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 474 Jun 13 12:21 wp-rdf.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 485 Jun 13 12:21 wp-rss.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 556 Jun 13 12:21 wp-rss2.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 18771 Aug 29 07:42 wp-settings.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 18012 Jul 22 07:10 wp-signup.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 3435 Jun 13 12:21 wp-trackback.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 9226 Aug 25 11:06 wpmu-settings.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 wwwrun www 75403 Aug 13 10:13 xmlrpc.php
`

Also - I have wiped the folder and attempted reinstall once already with the same result.

Aha! Oh, okay. :D

Looks like it's not writing the htaccess file and thus getting stuck on that step and not finishing the install. Which does suck BTW, and I have run into that.

My only concern is that the files are owned by wwwrun and www. Hmmm... shouldn't they be owned by that particular web account

root then?

Or do I need to upload via ftp?

Any other ideas on this issue?

If the .htaccess is not getting created, rename the .htaccess.dist file to ".htaccess", then edit the file to replace /BASE as your installed directory. Did you say the database won't create either? Make sure the database user has all the needed permissions.

No joy.

Let me backup a step. Can mu handle server names that are not "domain.tld"?

I am in a situation where our servers live at server.college.university.edu
I plan on not using vhost and installing similar to Harvard's blogs.harvard.edu/blogname/

Here is the installation address:
http://eresponse.cvm.tamu.edu/wpmu/index.php

I have display_errors on. There is no .htaccess right now - it is a fresh install. DB and DB user are ready awaiting.

Ok I figured it out. WP didn't like being dropped out of apache's root folder. The controls in the various Apache2 conf files didn't allow permissions to inherit correctly.

The only way I could get it to work was put it in the server's root folder.