WordPress MU

Currently I am using the WPMU Site Manager plug-in to create top level Domain blogs. When I started with WPMU 2 months ago I thought this was the only way.

No I have found a Domain Mapping plugin for standard blogs. Is this the way to go?

It is a pain having separate sites for every blog that has a top level domain, and a real pain trying to move a standard blog to a site.

Could someone give me a breakdown, pro's and con's between the two. My WPMU is still small so I would like to figure this out before growing much larger.

Thanks.

AFAIK these two plugins do different things. Donncha's plugin works as on wordpress.com. A user can map his own domain name to his blog on your subdomain installation of MU. (doesn't support su-directories yet). When that happens, all the links are converted automatically to the mapped domain.

Ok. Well, I am really just doing this for my family members and friends. Sounds like it would be less overhead then creating seperate sites for each person. But I am also hosting their domains which all have wildcard sub domains.

Since, as a blog, they can not just 'create' their own sub-blogs, can I create a sub-blog for them (if they want it) and then map their subdomain to that, so really, they would have 2 blogs, one as their main domain and one as a sub.domain, but both really sub.domains of my site?

Whew. Get's confusing.

Other than their own site options and the ability to create their own sub domains on the fly, is their really any other loss by mapping rather than creating individual sites?

Also, what does it mean they won't have 'remote login access'?

Thanks again.

O

No ..they will have one blog. Take for example, on wordpress.com there's failblog.wordpress.com. That blog's domain is failblog.org Both point to the same thing. That's how this works.

I take remote login access to mean, that you will have to login again if you go from the subdomain to the mapped domain and vice-versa, which is how it is.

OK. Seems fine. When everything was setup on its own 'site', I had more control over which themes I wanted them to be able to choose from. Now, they get the same ones I have since we are now all in the same 'site'.

I'm playing around with 'UserThemes', but either it is too late or ... It is just confusing.

I did create a sub.domain for my mom though. I just created a new blog, but mapped it to sub.domain.com. She already as another blog mapped as domain.com. This way she can keep her personal blog separate from her professional blog. I setup the Members Only plug in for her personal. So other then the login stuff, and themes management, seems close to the same.

I just have some themes I have customized that no one would want to use. Also, I am trying to figure out how I can keep my offer only some themes and not others, but still make all available for me. Any ideas on this?

every theme you upload to your themes folder, has to be "enabled" to be available to everyone and if you don't enable a theme, it is only available to the site admin (you)

enabling themes: SITE ADMIN => THEMES

Thanks Ovidiu.
Ah... It there a way to only have certain themes available to certain blogs?

Since I was setting blog up as its own site, I could set which themes each blog could see. So if I spent time customizing a theme for a user, other users couldn't then select that theme.

Thanks again everyone.

Yes.

When the theme is disabled, just to to the Edit Blog area and on the right will be a list of disabled themes. You can then check the box to enable a theme just for that blog.

Thanks andrea_r,
See, I knew I saw it somewhere. I really have to stop programming at 2am. No more. Gotta stop.

Rather then using the Domains Plugin, can someone explain why I couldn't just go into the Site Admin > Blogs > Edit and change all of the URI's to just point to the domain name?

I would point the users domain to my IP and add their domain to my account pointing it to my WordPressMU folder.

Thanks.

yep, that works too.

I could have sworn that I had done that before, but I got some sort of 'this blog does not seem to have a site attached to it' or something like that.

If I am wrong, why use the domain mapping plugin? For that matter, why use the site manager plugin?

Thanks.

you might have skipped a step, could be cookie issues - plenty of things.

Hey, thanks again for answering me andrea_r.

Man, I wish I would have known that. Oh well. Learned a lot along the way. I am moving 2 more domains tonight from Godaddy (thank god) and I will try just to change all the url's and see what happens.

One thing I can't figure out is why when I upload files using the darn Wordpress Media uploader, it wants to always put my files in a date format file directory. I mean everything works, but i would rather have a bit of control over where the files go in my /files directory. Any built in control over that?

Well, maybe the Domain plugin is required. I changed all the url (site admin > blogs > edit) to the top level domain name and I got this error:

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

Now if I add the top level domain with the domain plugin and leave the urls on the edit page the same, sub.mydomain.com, it will work. Or I can add an additional site and move the blog to that site and that works.

I really would like to just change the url's if that is possible. Is there something wrong with my install that won't allow it, or is this why the domain plugin exists?

Thanks again.

That's probably why the domain plugin exists. And it has a nice admin menu to help.

Also, no there isn't much control over where your uploaded files go. At least I haven't played with it to find out.

Thanks for all of your help on this. I have a better understanding how this works now. Domain plugin isn't that big of a deal.

I'm having trouble with the domain mapping plug-in, and I'm hoping someone can tell me what I'm getting wrong.

As example number 1, I have
http://www.forwardmotionblog.com/
which should be pointing to
http://cheryljohnson.bloodhoundblog.net/
Right now, this is landing on an Apache/CPanel/WHM page, which suggests that it is actually hitting my Hostgator.com dedicated server. The DNS record at Godaddy.com has been edited only to add the DNS "A" record to point to my IP address.

For example number 2,we have
http://gregswann.com/
which should be pointing to
http://pom.bloodhoundblog.net/
This one is coming up with the server not being found at all. For this domain, I added NS1 and NS2 records and pointed them at NS1.bloodhoundblog.net and NS2.bloodhoundblog.net.

I'm reading example number 1 as being closer to where I need to be, but obviously not close enough. Both domains are trying to behave as expected from the WP-Mu side of things, looking for, for example, properly substituted URIs like http://forwardmotionblog.com/?p=78

My take is that I'm either doing something wrong with the DNS "A" record or I have something wrong at the file server.

I would be very grateful if someone could point me in the right direction.

First of all, do you have NS1.bloodhoundblog.net and NS2.bloodhoundblog.net registered as nameservers?

example #1 needs the www taken off. :)

> example #1 needs the www taken off. :)

Yeah. No difference, alas.

> First of all, do you have NS1.bloodhoundblog.net and NS2.bloodhoundblog.net registered as nameservers?

Yes.

I know I'm baby steps away from where I need to be because when I type in

pom.bloodhoundblog.net/?p=16

it gets properly swapped to

http://gregswann.com/2008/11/22/hello-cheryl/

The only problem is that the actual post doesn't appear. Instead, I get "Failed to open page."

Thanks for all your help.

I THINK I'm having the same problem as everyone but I'm not sure. I can create new blogs fine but they don't show the post names or extensions (only the blog name or the unsightly root to blog name name - see below).

I went to 1and1.com and forwarded the domain to the address http://s1xxxx3.onlinehome.us/wordpressmu/new_blog_domain_name/ but I used the frame option. I couldn't get it to work with http redirect.

Am I missing something?

I don't understand the conversation about the domain mapping plug in - I installed a plug in but I don't see anywhere you do anything different.

Please excuse my ignorance. Thanks!

You can't use the domain mapping plugin with a subfolder install, just a subdomain one.

It does say this in the instructions.