WordPress.org

1. annathepiper
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #
   

   Hi all, new user here. I've done a little searching on the forums and am not entirely satisfied that what I want to do is answered yet, so here goes!

   I have multiple standalone blogs set up on my home server. Each of them is an individual install of WordPress, with their own tables in the wordpress database. Each of them also lives in its own account on the system, since for most of them, they have their own unique domain names as well as some content not actually managed by WordPress.

   As you can guess, managing a different install of WordPress for all six of these blogs is inefficient and messy. So I'd like to run them all off a single install of 3.0. But I'd like to preserve all the domain names, and if at all possible, I'd like to have the non-Wordpress files still living in the individual accounts.

   Is this possible? I've seen this link already, but it seems to be talking about setting up 3.0 to use multiple domains with brand new blogs, whereas my situation is that I'd like to import multiple old blogs into one single install of 3.0.

   Thanks in advance for any help, folks!

   Edited to add: I already have a test install of 3.0 set up with networking enabled, and I understand how to create a brand new site in the network. What I'm not sure on is how I could import the content of the old blogs into the new install, and also, where exactly I'd want to be re-pointing my various domains.

2. patung
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #
   

   This is my plan....set up a dummy site as a multisite....import the posts from the existing site, import the images, put them in the right place so they display in the dummy site, when everything is ok, delete the existing (subdomain) install and change the url of the dummy site to that of the previously existing site that was a separate install....hope that makes sense.

   This is for subdomains.

3. Andrea Rennick
   Customer Care at Copyblogger Media and Studiopress
   Posted 2 years ago #
   

   What I'm not sure on is how I could import the content of the old blogs into the new install, and also, where exactly I'd want to be re-pointing my various domains.

   your blogs all have an Export menu. then you Import into the new one.

   For full domains, please use the domain mapping plugin here:
   http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/

   And you point the domains at your main install. WP figured out where they go. (really)

   I know I have a post in here somewhere where I detailed this a bit more.

4. kgraeme
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #
   

   Be aware that the export feature in wordpress does not include tables that may have been generated by plugins or themes. It's the best we have at the moment though.

   I'd love to see something like BackupBuddy add the ability to do individual site migrations to/from multisite installs.

5. annathepiper
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #
   

   Thanks everyone for your replies!

   Re: importing the content of my old blogs into the new network:

   I assume that if I wish to import Blog A into the new network, I first need to create a new placeholder Blog A in the network, yes? And then I import content into it?

   Giving that a try tonight but am finding that the new placeholder blog is throwing me 404s.

6. annathepiper
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #
   

   Okay, update. Here's where I am.

   I was able to successfully create a test site, as I mentioned, and I spun off a second site on its network and tonight got content imported into it from one of my established sites.

   What DIDN'T work was trying to set up the mu-domain-mapping plugin. It complained at me that it had to be installed in the root directory of my web server. I can't do that on the grounds that I didn't install this test install of WP 3 there--and I can't, because there's an established set of (non-Wordpress) webpages there already that I'm not going to overwrite.

   What I'm trying to do instead is build a network off one of my previously established blogs, with its own domain, so that I can use THAT as the web root that the mu-domain-mapping plugin seems to want. I'll report back if that works.

7. PJ Brunet
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #
   

   When you say "inefficient" and "messy" can you be more specific?

   I was in your shoes when MU first came out. But instead of going to MU I found ways to make things more efficient.

   Are you using $table_prefix or multiple databases?

   There are ways to manage your multiple blogs without activating/converting to Multisite.

   For example, if it's keeping your themes changes in sync that's annoying you, there's several ways to do that.

   Either way, I'm curious to know how this works out for you: pj at pjbrunet.com

8. annathepiper
   Member
   Posted 2 years ago #
   

   Status update on this:

   Successfully converted one of my previous sites to the first blog in a network. For the interested, that site is http://www.annathepiper.org. (That's my main personal blog.)

   Pulled unseeliecourt.annathepiper.org in as a secondary blog on the network. This is also now working; the DNS appears to have propagated out at least some from my home network.

   Remaining yet to do:

   1) Figure out how to redirect http://www.unseeliecourt.net to the newly established unseeliecourt.annathepiper.org; am expecting that the previously mentioned domain mapping plugin might help here.

   2) Must also figure out if I can still account for non-WP content involved with other secondary sites or if it all needs to be maintained in this new network.

   New problem:

   1) Before I converted annathepiper.org to the first site in a network, I had annathepiper.org and http://www.annathepiper.org both working successfully to direct me to the homepage of the blog. Now http://www.annathepiper.org is working, but annathepiper.org is redirecting to http://www.annathepiper.org/wp-signup.php?new=annathepiper.org, and shows an error message that says "registration has been disabled". Does anyone know what I might have broken there?

9. Andrea Rennick
   Customer Care at Copyblogger Media and Studiopress
   Posted 2 years ago #
   

   re: #1 - most domain mapping plugins will not let you domain map the main blog of the network. :) this is a safety feature to prevent people doing it by accident.

   you *can* go in the databse and change the URLs there 9and in wp-config too)

   #2 - be easier if you rolled it all in as WP pages

   #3 - it's the www redirect. :) You may need to ask your host to fix something.

10. annathepiper
    Member
    Posted 2 years ago #
    

    Andrea,

    #1 - I don't need to remap the main blog, just all the subsequent ones. :)

    #2 - Noted!

    #3 - I AM the host! All of this stuff is being done on my own server. :) I just need to know what might need fixing. My Apache vhost file for annathepiper.org hasn't changed; the ServerName still says http://www.annathepiper.org, and my ServerAlias says "annathepiper.org http://www.annathepiper.org *.annathepiper.org", now that I've set up wildcard subdomains.

    Edited to add: Since the forum seems to automatically change www-type links, please to note all references to http://www.annathepiper.org above are actually without the http bit in the front!

11. annathepiper
    Member
    Posted 2 years ago #
    

    Updating again to answer my own question:

    I fixed my new issue by setting a NOBLOGREDIRECT value in my wp-config.php file, which I apparently needed to do because I had new user registration off.

    More as I have it!

12. annathepiper
    Member
    Posted 2 years ago #
    

    Last update, I think: SUCCESS!

    As of tonight I successfully installed the new version of the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin, and got the #2 blog on my network, unseeliecourt.annathepiper.org, remapped over to http://www.unseeliecourt.net where I wanted it. :D

    What I had to do to get it to work was:

    1) Make sure my Apache vhost file for unseeliecourt.net was pointed to the same DocumentRoot as annathepiper.org
    2) Make sure that the domain mapping plugin was pointed at http://www.unseeliecourt.net
    3) ALSO edit the site data to change siteurl and home values to http://www.unseeliecourt.net so that my theme could work

    So I think the majority of my questions are now resolved to my satisfaction. Thanks much everyone for your assistance and pointing me in the right direction! :)

13. vitamineg
    Member
    Posted 2 years ago #
    

    Be aware that the export feature in wordpress does not include tables that may have been generated by plugins or themes. It's the best we have at the moment though.

    Super important...i wish the documentation on migration mentioned this specifically.

14. Andrea Rennick
    Customer Care at Copyblogger Media and Studiopress
    Posted 2 years ago #
    

    If you;re comfortable with doing database imports & exports, here's an oldie but goodie:

    http://bavatuesdays.com/importing-a-single-wp-blog-to-a-wpmu-installation/

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