WordPress 3.0: Multisite Domain Mapping Tutorial
The other day, Klint Finley wrote a very good walkthrough of using the new Multisite functionality of WordPress 3.0. In the comments, a lot of people wanted to know how to use your own domain names. Since I’m doing that now, here’s a quick walkthrough/how-to guide.
Step 1: Manual Plugin Installation
The Domain Mapping plugin is not your regular kind of plugin. You cannot install it through the normal Plugins->Add New menu. Well, actually, you can, it just won’t work.
So first, download the plugin manually.
Note: For this tutorial, I will be using the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin. However, I am using the trunk version of the plugin. It has fixes in it that you will need for proper 3.0 support. Don’t try it with the regular version. (Note: The regular version works fine. This was originally written before the latest version, or 3.0, was released.)
The plugin has two main files you need to put in the proper places.
Domain mapping php file location
The first file is the domain_mapping.php file. This needs to go into the mu-plugins folder. The mu-plugins folder is a special folder, which you may not even have yet. Just create it underneath the wp-content folder and put that file into it.
Sunrise php file location
The second file is the sunrise.php file. This is a special filename for WordPress. Don’t worry about it, just put it in the wp-content folder.
Step 2: Activate Sunrise
Now you need to edit your wp-config.php file. Add this line of code to it:
define( 'SUNRISE', 'on' );
Simple, really. This will cause WordPress to go load that sunrise.php file and use it.
Step 3: Server info
Now you have to configure the domain mapping plugin so that it knows what it’s doing properly. This is easy to do, really. Go to your main domain’s admin page and log in as a super admin. Then go to the new Super Admin->Domain Mapping menu.
Domain mapping setup screen
Here you have a few different options, but two main ones that count. You can either put in the IP address of your server (as defined in your domain’s main A record) or you can put in a CNAME that points to your server. The IP address is what most people will want to use. If your server uses more than one, you can enter them all here, separated by commas.
Other options on this page:
- Remote Login – This will make your login pages for all sites redirect to your main site to do the actual login. The benefit of this is that when you log in to one, you log into all of them. The downside is that the URL changes to another domain in order to log in.
- Permanent redirect (better for your blogger’s pagerank) – This makes your subdomain or subdirectory sites redirect to their domains. You should leave this on.
- User domain mapping page – Turn this on if you want users to be able to put in their own domains for mapping.
- Redirect administration pages to blog’s original domain (remote login disabled if redirect disabled) – This makes all admin pages show up on the original domain instead of on the new domains. You need this enabled for remote login to work.
Generally I leave only the middle two on. Remote-login is iffy at best, and I want my new domain name to show up everywhere.
Step 4: Mapping the Domain
There’s a bit of a prerequisite here before you do this. When you buy a new domain, you will need to edit its DNS settings to actually point to your server IP or CNAME or whatever you do to make the domain connect to your server. For me, I just give it a new A record with my server IP in it. Easy.
Update: Okay, so there may be more to it than just that, depending on your host. Every host is different, and you’ll have to talk to your host to make them able to point the domain name at your existing site. How to do this varies from host to host, but the important thing is that when you visit your new domain (before you do this!) then you want it to go to your main site, as is.
There’s two ways you can actually map a domain to one of your sites. The user screen is the simplest way, if you left that option on before. Log into the site you actually want to map to a new domain, then go to Tools->Domain Mapping.
User Domain Mapping Screen
All you really do is put in a new domain and set it as the primary. Simple.
Note that if you didn’t get the domain pointed at your server before doing this, then your site will instantly vanish from the realm of mortal man. Setting the primary domain takes effect instantly. You won’t be able to access the site through the old domain any more.
The other way to set domain mapping is through the Super Admin->Domains menu. Here you’ll find a list of sites and their ID numbers. You can map an id number directly to a domain name here. The Tools approach is a bit easier to use, but this will allow you to map domains without visiting them, as you can access this list from your main domain. You can also correct broken domain mappings from here.
Step 5: Seeing the Mapped Domains
If you go to Super Admin->Sites, you’ll find this type of a listing:
Sites listing
You’ll note that on the right hand side you can see the column showing the mapped domains.
Special Note: See in the picture how I’m using a subdirectory install? That’s relatively new. In older versions of the domain mapping system, you had to use a subdomain installation and wildcard DNS for domain mapping to work. This is no longer the case, domain mapping works just fine with subdirectories.
Conclusion
And that’s how it’s done. It’s not super complex, but it does require some knowledge of DNS and how servers work. If you can successfully set up a multi-site install to begin with, you can probably do this as well. Just be aware that it is slightly finicky, and know that you will break your site if you put in the wrong settings somewhere. However, your main domain will always be accessible as long as you don’t try to map it, so you’ll be able to go in from there to correct your mistakes.
Hi Otto,
I’m wondering why this way works :
I create a new wordpress installation inside foo.com, and add another site such as alice.foo.com, bob.foo.com, etc. It works perfectly fine.
I buy another domain, named bar.com which redirects to my wordpress installation path to foo.com. So everytime I go to bar.com, I can be pointed to the foo.com. Here is the magic goes… I DON’T use the plugin you mentioned,
0. I add another site inside foo.com/wp-admin/network/site-new.php. I named it bar.foo.com. Then I go to foo.com/wp-admin/network/sites.php, change the domain name from bar.foo.com to bar.com (it also changes the siteurl value to http bar.com)
1. I go to my phpMyAdmin, add another row inside wp_site table, So I have 2 rows inside wp_site table
id : 1
domain : foo.com
path : /
id : 2
domain : bar.com
path : /
2. I go to the other table named wp_blogs. And change the row that relates with the bar.com site. For example, it has id = 7 (because I have 6 sites inside foo.com, from 1 to 6). So, the id 7 has site_id = 2 (which relates to bar.com). Here is the complete rows
blog_id site_id domain path
1 1 foo.com /
2 1 alice.foo.com /
3 1 bob.foo.com /
4 1 charlie.foo.com /
5 1 dean.foo.com /
6 1 eric.foo.com /
7 2 bar.com /
I don’t know if this works for others.
That’s what’s known as multi-network. You have created a separate network of sites using a different domain name. You haven’t put two separate domain names into the same multi-site network.
A normal multi-site install is a single “network” of related sites. By creating a new row in wp_site and referencing it in wp_blogs, you’ve created a second, separate, network. The “site-options” and similar whole-site settings will be specific to individual networks.
Note: WordPress has no user-friendly way to create or manage multiple networks of sites. It can do it internally, but it’s generally been deemed too confusing to put into the interface so-far.
Hi sangprabo,
You are great you solve my problem.. Thank you very much indeed. Even I didn’t install any plug-in.. You’re manual setting working well. Now mutliple domain with multisite working absolutely fine.. Again thanks to share your experience..
Hi otto, what should i use if i want to have two domain names pointing to the same WP content? During navigation i would want the domain name to stay the same, not to redirect to a primary site. So what i want is a sort of dynamic site_url, is that possible and advisable regarding SEO?
how to define in cname section? ( http://i0.wp.com/ottopress.com/files/2010/06/domainmapping3.png?zoom=2&resize=607%2C431)
we will enter the domain name of main domain like maindomain.com ???
please help because i tried but it not work, setup this plugin with nginx and php-5 fpm ( not apache )
Thanx a lot, this save me many time
Hi Otto,
I currently host a number of domain names on my 1&1 web server. I have installed WordPress multisite along with the Domain Mapping plug-in.
How do I map domains on my server to the multisite.
rather than being sitename.com/site1 I want domainname.com
Many thanks in advance.
I have a multisite install on a managed dedicated server – and i have installed the plug in properly but the domain can’t be found on the server it bonks to the plesk message no domain at this server. Does this have to do with the CNAME? I only pointed the DNS at the IP address… I would have thought it would go to the total-online.com if nothing else – the domain is total-phillies.com or total-rangers.com… need some help…
Currently looking at redoing a WP site that had a developer plug in so we could have different titles depending on what section of the site you are on.
But now I am looking at splitting up the sections so they are all different sites.
But we would want the posts to be linked..
Parentdomain.com (all the posts no matter what site)
domain1.com (just posts just related to this section)
domain2.com (just posts for this section)
I would only want to put up the post once and tick/mark what section I want it to be on.
We do have it in a form at the moment but it was done by a developer which as moved on and if we upgrade wordpress it will break.
Any ideas
Thanks for the post. This post became old, I think it should be upgraded. There are some additional options in MU Mapping plugin which are not mentioned here.
[…] WordPress 3.0: Multisite Domain Mapping Tutorial […]
Hi!
Thanks for this tutorial, I did this BUT when I set the domain mapping to “Primary”, my site doesnt work 🙁
My settings:
I have a server with a domain name http://www.ahojkomarno.sk/spravy …… i want to map this address to http://www.sziakomarom.sk.
But my “sziakomarom.sk” site has a automatic redirection to “www.ahojkomarno.sk/spravy”.
I dont know why dont work..please help me 🙂 Thank you guys 🙂
Hello, I’m studying this configuration.
I’m going to do a blog network with wordpress multisite and the plugin “WordPress MU Domain Mapping” to get all the main.com blog / site on site.com. I have some questions.
– To do this configuration, you need a multi-domain hosting plan?
– Or just a plan that does not support multi-domain?
– If I should take from one provider to all top-level domains without hosting plan configuring the DNS. And then you took another provider with the main domain hosting space (does not support multi-domain). The configuration work?
– With the “WordPress MU Domain Mapping” in the address bar will appear main.com / or site.com site? And in the paths of the images?
Thank you very much!
– Alessandro from Italy 🙂
[…] Set my server IP address in the domain mapping configuration as per step 3 in http://ottopress.com/2010/wordpress-3-0-multisite-domain-mapping-tutorial/ […]
Hello, I’m using this plugin more than 1,5 years.
But (I think) a few weeks a go, I got this message in my network admin surface:
What is this?
Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare dm_text_domain() (previously declared in /home/softelit/public_html/wp-content/mu-plugins/domain_mapping.php:29) in /home/softelit/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/domain_mapping.php on line 30
Please, help me … 😮
Regards: John
I got this when I activated the plugin AFTER copying the files and changing my config file. Activate BEFORE solved that problem
I just tried to setup a multidomain site, but the plugin looks totally different and do not let me add domains ?
http://imgur.com/a/57N5p
What am I missing, please ?
Is it a good practice to place that plugin in the mu-plugins directory?
What will happen if updates are released for the plugin?
You will need to manually manage any updates to that plugin file. It won’t be automatically upgraded.
Hi Otto,
Thanks for the gr8 plugin, you save my time, but still confused some where
I am planing to start few sites in WordPress, I want to use the same “DATA” in all the websites like Post, Pages and Plugins, but only need different THEME and Menu on each websites.
How it can be possible in my case.
Before checking your plugin I was planing to install new wordpress on each website then import all the data from the main site,
Thanks a Million for this gr8 plugin.
Objective:
If I post something on the main wordpress site then that post will reflects on other domains automatically.
As I know: no, It is not. If you need this function, why are you working on multisite. just redirect to main site.
Yes, its an easy way I know, but I want different themes on all the domains.
This tutorial save my time. Thanks Otto!
[…] 3.0 – WordPress 3.0: The 5 Most Important New Features – Working With MultiSite In WordPress 3.0 – WordPress 3.0: Multisite Domain Mapping Tutorial – Upgrading from WPMU to WP 3.0 – Everything about WordPress 3.0 Menu Management – Goodbye, […]
Hi Otto
Can this plugin be used when my wordpress domain is using cloudflare’s DNS?
Thanks,
Joe
I don’t know much about Cloudflare’s DNS system, but probably. The trick isn’t configuring DNS, usually, the trick is configuring your webserver properly.
Several things have to happen to do domain mapping like this:
– The DNS has to be configured to point the domain at the IP of your host.
– The host web server has to be configured to have those domains mapped to the WordPress installation.
This plugin then takes over after that, and maps the domain to the individual blog in your multisite installation.
Thanks for responding.
Is it possible to setup a CNAME record at the domain registrar to point to an A record at cloudflare? I know I could just add an A record at the registrar to point to the IP address of the server that wordpress is hosted on, but then the traffic bypasses cloudflare
No, because you cannot use a CNAME for a root (naked) domain. CNAMEs are only for defining subdomains. Root domains have to point to Address records.
Technically, the reason you cannot have a CNAME for the root domain is because, per the RFCs, a CNAME record cannot co-exist with any other records for the same item. Since the root domain must always have NS entries for it, it cannot also have a CNAME. While there is nothing actually stopping you from putting a CNAME record there, the bottom line is that no DNS system supports it and it just won’t work.
If you’re going to use Cloudflare DNS like this, you kinda have to use it for all the domains, or to have that domain not pointed to Cloudflare at all and instead just going direct to your actual server hosting that domain.
The easiest way to do that is simply create an A-Record using CloudFlare’s DNS in which you have just the root for that domain pointing to the correct IP address. It goes without saying, of course, you must have your PTR records at your registrar pointing to the correct CloudFlare DNS servers.
By the way, in case you didn’t know it, CloudFlare has the fastest DNS on the planet and it is consistently the fastest to propagate.
[…] to use one low-cost shared hosting package to run several small sites. There are already several nice tutorials about achieving this, but most were written for earlier versions of WordPress and talk […]
Hello, thanks for this great tutorial!
I installed my first multisite blog and it works fine.
I installed the dub-directory version:
MainSite => blog.domain.de
http://www.domain2.de => blog.domain.de/domain2
http://www.domain3.de => blog.domain.de/domain3
and this works.
now i have a domain where i only can use a subdirectory:
http://www.domain4.de/blog
so i wanted to map it:
http://www.domain4.de/blog => blog.domain.de/domain4
but this doesnt work.
If i call http://www.domain3.de/blog i would be redirected to blog.domain.de
perhaps i have to change my .htaccess or is it not possible to map domains+subdirs like i want?
my .htacesss:
# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ $1wp-admin/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $2 [L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ $2 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
# END WordPress
[…] Full instructions are on the Installation page and are quite easy to follow. You should also read this page […]
[…] server settings. A great tutorial for setting up this plugin can be found on Otto’s blog, “WordPress 3.0 Multisite Domain Mapping Tutorial“. Full […]
[…] Here are two links that helped me out- http://ottopress.com/2010/wordpress-3-0-multisite-domain-mapping-tutorial/ […]
I followed your instructions up until step 3 where you say…
On the Network page, look under Settings->Domain Mapping.
That’s great, thanks Otto 🙂
Seems I’m in over my head. Now I’m stuck at step four. I’m using WP 3.8.1 so the images you have vary from the newer version.
I’m actually installing domain mapping to overcome another problem I’m having on my newly created multisite. The real problem I’m having is that when i try and create a sub-domain of my site sub.mysite.com.au it won’t let me in to the admin page.
Any advice greatly appreciated.
I did write this 4 years ago. Things change. 🙂
The basic steps are the same, but the screens are different. There isn’t much more to it than what is in these steps. You set it up, give it the domain names, assign them to sites, and that’s pretty much it. I’m still using the plugin on this site too.
This plugin isn’t going to solve any problems for you, really. I deliberately didn’t include any of the things you have to do to setup your DNS for wildcards, or how to configure Apache or nginx for wildcard subdomains. Those are where you’ll have the actual problems. All this plugin does is to map incoming browser requests to sites in the multisite instance by the domain name. It doesn’t do the whole job.
No probs, thanks for replying. I kind of got what the plugin does and wondered if it would help at all but figured it was worth installing anyway, I just can’t find some of the bit that maps my domain.
Not to worry, I’ll have to give it a rest for the night and try again tomorrow.
Thanks again
I installed multisite primarily because I bought a new domain name and want to point it to my existing WP installation. I cant’ just forward the domain because of the database issues.
I’m wondering how do i setup a site without installing a new WP blog? I want to simply point the new domain name to the main site. How do i set this up from the ‘new site’ screen?
Also, does the new site need to be in a subfolder of the main site folder or can it be in a different add-on domain folder that exists equal in hierarchy as the main site folder?
Follow up to my previous question
Since my purpose is to map a new domain name to my existing MAIN site, I tried using the ‘/’ setting for the folder location of my new sub/child site. When I previewed it, it did go to my main WP site.
This is what I want, but I wonder if by doing this, it may cause a problem. Also, if this is ok, I presume this mean i should continue using the dashboard of the MAIN site.
Hi Otto
Thanks for the nice pulgin. i tried few times and failed, could not succeed.
May be my understanding is wrong, so i would like to confirm you or somebody.
Here is the thing, which i want to achive.
I have domains, in 1&1 ex: http://www.maindomain.com
hosting account with Godaddy : Added http://www.maindomain.com and installed wordpress, everything works fine.
Now I got new domains at 1&1, http://www.newdomain.com, http://www.newdomain2.com.
These two new domains, i want to fetch the contect from maindomain.com
ex: http://www.maindomain.com/category/post.html
http://www.newdomain1.com/category/post.html
http://www.newdomain2.com/category/post.html
all should get the contect from same database.
How do i achieve this, please help me out.
Thank U 🙂
Sreeker.
its like three domains, acting as different websites, but fetching the content from same database.
I tried by creating sub.maindomain.com, but failed again.
what i did was, created sub.maindomain.com at 1&1. configured in godaddy and installed wordpress, this works fine.
2. now Enabled http://www.maindomain.com (network sites)
3. edited wp-config.php and .htaccess files
4. Logged in again, then installed pulgin and activated -logged off.
5. Moved file sunrise.php to wp-content.
6. logged IN again network admin
5. Added sub.maindomain.com site to Networksites menu.
6. added Godaddy Hosting IP address.
7. tried to domain mapping, but there is no domain folder to add.
there i’m stuck again.
Please help me out. waiting for your reply.
5.
Hi,
After I have configured the plugin and mapped to my domain, I got this message when I acess my site:
Internal Server Error
UID of script “/home/httpd/html/index.php” is smaller than min_uid
suPHP 0.6.3
Please, help.
That error message really has nothing to do with the Domain Mapping plugin. You should search Google for that error instead.
I’ve got a WordPress multi-site installation configured to do subdirectory sites. Using this domain mapping plugin, I’ve successfully got several domain names transparently mapping to sub-sites, so people visiting AAAAA.com and BBBBB.com actually see content from mysite.com/AAAAA and mysite.com/BBBBB. I’ve done this with an ‘A’ record pointing at the IP of my WordPress installation.
I’m having trouble though setting up mapping of a subdomain blog.CCCCC.com to mysite.com/CCCCC. I’ve added a CNAME record for ‘blog’ pointing to mysite.com, so that visiting blog.CCCCC.com shows me the root site at mysite.com/ but I can’t get WordPress to show the content from /CCCCC instead of just /. I’ve added both “CCCCC.com” and “blog.CCCCC.com” as new domains with the domain mapping tool, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the site at CCCCC.com uses https all the time for everything, so the URL is actually https://blog.CCCCC.com/ rather than http://… — is that perhaps causing WP or the plugin to “miss” the mapping?
Thanks in advance for helping.
Hi Tim
I have the same problem but nobody can’t help me 🙁
Do you succeed to solve it ? if yes, please help me. Thanks alot 🙂
When using this plugin, is it possible to host multiple WordPress sites on both different domains and also subdomains? For example, if I want:
site1.com
– sub1.site1.com
– sub2.site1.com
site2.com
all running off the same WordPress install. Your instructions here seem to indicate that it can only be used for different domains (e.g. the automatic prefixing of ‘www’ in the Add A New Domain form).
Just found this: http://code.tutsplus.com/articles/wordpress-multisite-beyond-basics-essentials-and-domain-mapping–wp-24452
It indicates that the basic subdomain mappings that WordPress allows you to create remain intact when your plugin is installed and each one has to opt in to being assigned a domain. This is ideal for me. I’ll give it a go and see. Any tips or gotchas to look out for are welcome though 🙂
Otto, first off… thank you for the tutorial, it really simplified things for me.
On another note, at the very end of your tutorial, you wrote:
*However, your main domain will always be accessible as long as you don’t try to map it*
I really wish you had written this up in the Step 4 section when the tutorial was taking me through the process of mapping my domains. Plus your image graphic shows an example of you mapping your main domain. So naturally, I went ahead and mapped my main domain. But then when I got to the end of your tutorial, you cautioned against this, after I had already completed Step 4.
Please, I need to know…
– what problems will having my main domain mapped cause for me… is it really that bad?
– are there any benefits to keeping my main domain mapped?
– is unmapping my main domain possible? in other words, is mapping my main domain reversible?
No, ottopress.com is not my main domain. My main domain is ottodestruct.com, and ottopress.com is the domain that I mapped a subsite on that domain to.
You cannot remap the main domain. It’s the one thing that you cannot change.
Thank you soooo much Otto for the quick and helpful response! 🙂
Mapping my main domain caused me to lose Super Admin access. At first I panicked, but then found a nice workaround to undo my mistake. I simply logged into phpMyAdmin and changed the Active entries from 0 to 1 for the primary (i.e. ottopress.com), and from 1 to 0 for the main site (i.e. ottodestruct.com). This restored me to Super Admin access, thank goodness. Is this sql deletion/solution good enough, or just I just purge and then re-install the plugin for a fresh/clean copy so that I can avoid my mistake of mapping my main domain???
Please please please help with just a few more questions:
Lets say I want to use the CNAME method instead of the IP method. Assuming ottodestruct.com/op is where the blog/content is hosted, then I would follow these steps, correct???
Step1. On the “Domain Mapping Configuration” Screen, in the “Server CNAME domain” field, I would enter in ottodestruct.com and click save, correct?
Step2. Next, I would navigate to the ottopress.com domain’s DNS Manager Tool, and add a CNAME record where I save ottodestruct.com as the target destination for ottopress.com , correct?
(pls note that my DNS Tool already indicates that there is a CNAME record setup for ottopress.com with the “www” prefix/sub-domain … should I just edit this record and change the target to ottodestruct.com , or should I create a new CNAME record and leave the sub-domain field blank but add in ottodestruct.com as the target)
On the “Domain Mapping Configuration” Screen, WP Version 3.9.1 adds the following 5th Domain Option:
**Disable primary domain check. Sites will not redirect to one domain name. May cause duplicate content issues.**
Can you please explain what this 5th Option does? If I am making the blog/contents hosted at ottodestruct.com/op appear when visitors navigate to ottpress.com , then I would want to leave this box unchecked, correct?
You should send your questions to the plugin authors. I did not write this plugin, I just wrote this tutorial about how to use it, 4 years ago.
[…] you need to copy a file, to modify some and to configure the mapping for the domains. A very good tutorial was made by Otto on using Domain Mapping plugin. Plugin site: […]
is it working on 4.0 wp?
Yep, @solucionesuno.
Version 5.5 seems to work fine on WP 4.0.1.
…and on WP 4.1.1 as well. 🙂
[…] site, we need to use WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin and follow these stairs described in OttoPress finish support on this […]
Hello,
I followed your tutorial with a clean WP 4.0.1. Almost everything works, except:
I now have a main domain and two new sites with their own domains, too. But:
When I open the two new domains, the links to the articles are displayed with the old domain+subdirectory. How can I change this? (When I go to “Sites -> Info” I can change domain+path (or siteurl+home) and then the links are displayed correctly, but don’t work anymore. What am I missing/doing wrong?
Thanks,
Dan
Could you change the information in Step 1. It’s old and is not correct. I followed it twice and then had to ignore it in favor of the plug-ins instructions. The plugin instructions did need Step 2 forward. Since the plugin’s instructions, “Install sunrise definition,” is not sufficient for a complete install.
Thanks.
Reggy, it’s not actually incorrect, it’s just optional. I wrote this tutorial before Network Activation was a thing. Different means to the same end.
They changed the plugin slightly to make it work via Network Activation. A Network Activated plugin and a plugin file in the mu-plugins directory are essentially identical, with the only real difference being that plugins in the mu-plugins folder cannot be deactivated through the Plugins screen. Plugins in mu-plugins get auto-loaded early, Network Activated plugins get loaded slightly later.
I still use the domain-mapping.php file in my mu-plugins directory and it works just fine that way too.
WordPress 4.01 and running the latest version. I have everything setup but am unable to have the domains mapping page actually save the domains. I checked permissions on the directory, in plugins for wordpress mu and also the sunrise.php. Any ideas?
Reggy,
Once I get this working, I will post a new, updated, guide on this. I just need to get past the inability to save a domain mapping. I click save and it acts like it doesn’t have perms to update the config.
Yes. Odd. It won’t save the Site ID 1 mapping for the primary. Everything else works. I disabled it all for now and will try back again later.
You can’t map the main domain. The very first site on the network, site 1, cannot be remapped to another domain. Only sub-sites can be mapped.
[…] WordPress 3.0: Multisite Domain Mapping Tutorial (ottopress.com) […]
Hi
I am trying to use this plugin on a Multisite setup.
I have the main site jamesfrizelles.com.au and I also have multiple subsites, eg – abc.jamesfrizelles.com.au etc… When I map abc.jamesfrizelles.com.au to abc.com.au I can not access the dashboard for the site anymore… The site however is accessible via abc.com.au which is good.
I have A records configured to point to the IP Address of the server for the domain abc.com.au
I have also created a subdomain via CPANEL where /public_html is the document root for abc.com.au
I am at a bit of a loss as to why I can not access the dashboard via the correct URL?
There is a workaround as if I modify the SITE record back to the subdomain url, eg abc.jamesfrizelles.com.au I can access the dashboard.
The error I receive is as below-
“The domain mapping plugin only works if the site is installed in /. This is a limitation of how virtual servers work and is very difficult to work around.”
Any assistance with this would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
It’s been a long time since WordPress 3.0.. Is there an updated way to map domains in multisite in 4.2.2 ? Do you need a plugin? if so, which one?
Nope. Same plugin, still works. The screens are in slightly different places, because of the Network admin area, but it has the same basic settings. Tutorial is still valid.
Hello Otto. Would the different subdirectory sites share same database table if mapped? Thanks.
Hi, Otto –
One quick question… (ha – I say “quick”…) I’m building a new multisite setup for a client that currently has nine virtually-identical discrete sites (hence the multisite), currently live, at nine separate domains. (I.e. “site1.com” , “site2.com”, “site3.com”, etc…)
I’m grappling with the logistics of leaving the existing sites in place during the development of the multisite (creating the multisite, exporting the old sites, importing into the multisite,etc.) so that I’m not interfering with their ongoing web traffic while I’m building.
I was *thinking* that I could:
1) build the multisite as folder-based under an as-yet-to-be-created “family” domain/url – something like “clientsitefamily.com” as the primary multisite, with “clientsitefamily.com/site1”, “clientsitefamily.com/site2”, “clientsitefamily.com/site3”. Design, develop, test, review… all of that in parallel to the existing live sites.
then
2) install/configure the domain mapping plugin on the multisite, mapping “site1.com”, “site2.com”, “site3.com”, etc, to their appropriate subdirectory/folders…. and at this point – prior to editing the CNAME/A records of the various domains – the separate discrete sites would *still* be functioning as they had been, and the primary multisite is still functioning as well.
Am I good so far?
Then, when the client has approved and I’m ready to “launch”, I just
3) Edit the CNAME/A records for the respective domains to point to the multisite (either to the main/primary site IP, or each directly to their respective subfolders.)
If I’m thinking that right, at this point the old sites are still sitting out there on their existing discrete hosts… but functionally, the traffic now goes to my multisite install. (Sort of giving me an “undo” situation, if need be – re-point the domain names to their respective hosts, and I’d be back to where I was.
Am I thinking about this properly? I’ve followed your instructions in the past for new multisite builds, mapped domains just fine, and all is well… but this is the first time I have to do this in parallel to a big family of sites, and kind of have to “switch” all at once. Of course, I *could* probably switch one domain at a time, as they get completed… true?
Anyway – I’m sure you have plenty on your plate out there, but I’d sure appreciate any thought/direction/feedback you might have on the issue.
Thanks in advance!
Chris
Should work. The way I do domains is that I give them a fake directory name first. Like ottopress.com is really ottodestruct.com/op, and I set up the stuff on that, then I add the domain mapping in later. Had no problems with that approach before.
Interesting – and good to hear.
Just to make sure I’m seeing things right … in my pre-mapping structure, where I have a clientfamilyofsites.com/site1/samplepage url, for example for a samplepage, while I’m developing, references to that (say in a WP generated menu) would be like that, and would show in the browser address bar as that.
But, when I install the domain mapping and then point the domain CNAME for site1.com to clientfamilyofsites.com/site1 …. then the sample page url would then be site1.com/samplepage – do I have that right?
And, on the converse… if/until I *do* CNAME edit, site1.com will still be business as usual, pointing to its current discrete host…. Right?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Chris
Chris, if there’s one thing you can do for yourself is to never hardcode links. You want the home page on that HOME button on your menu bar? Use “/” as the href value. Same for any other a links you might use. For example to get to your page about healthy greens, use “/2015/07/07/healthy-greens/” rather than the full link. That way, when you decide to move your blog’s URL you won’t have to manually fix tons of links.
Actually, full links are easier to adjust than relative ones, in the long run. Consider the case where your site lives in a subdirectory, like /blog, and you want to move it to a different URL, perhaps maybe even moving it up to the top level and not being in the subdirectory. If you use full links, then a simple search/replace on the full domain and subdirectory is much easier to do with full links than with partials.
Definitely – I understand about relative vs full links. In this case, though, my concern was regarding WP-generated urls – i.e., my “samplepage” found at somethingoruther/samplepage, and how that displays in the address bar once domain mapping (and CNAME/A record adjustments) are in place. In neither case is the page URL hardcoded – but the combination of domain mapping and CNAME/A changes should result in a url changing from clientfamilyofsites.com/site1/samplepage to site1.com/samplepage.
Anyway… I’ve modeled this on a test multisite I set up with a couple unmapped-then-mapped domains, and it appears to work as I hoped. I’m going to play around a bit more – prior to touching the live client sites – but all looks good.
Thanks for the info/comments/feedback, gang!
Here is the issue I am dealing with at this moment.
I installed WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin, placed all the php files in their places.
I set FASHIONONE.TV as the primary domain and then added FASHIONON.DE & FASHIONONE.JP to have them mapped through FASHIONONE.TV network.
Everything showed up fine and after I started to add sites and map them, I went in to edit one of the domains, I was redirected to a screen with “you don’t have access to this page” and has taken away my super admin permissions from my network.
any solutions?
Hey
I pointed my alias to the ip of my server.
But when I surf to that ip it shows an ‘apache installed correctly’; do I need to make sure that when you surf to it you go to my Multisite or just that server’s ip?
Thanks!