Yes. The WPMU Domain Mapping plugin can do that for you. 🙂
Thread Starter
xzoom
(@xzoom)
Thanks, and can it be actived only for one site?
No, it’s activated network wide or it will not work.
Sorry, I meant ‘Yes, you can only network map one site’ (not ‘you have to activate it network wide’). English is my first language, I swear!
Basically you can use it to map as many or as few domains as you want. But do activate it for your network 🙂
the plugin will not affect the other sites either.
I think this is exactly what I need too so I’m “contributing” 🙂 with a couple of questions whose answers may confirm my direction. I already have multisite working (in testing/research mode) and was disappointed to see that I only had the Sub-domains or Sub-directories option but not Separate-domain.
1. Is that “WPMU Domain Mapping” plugin this one:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/
and
2. Will it give me one code base, one database (with multiple “wp_#_” table prefixes), and allow me to have multiple sites like this:
http://www.rootsite.com/
http://childsiteX.com/
http://www.bbqcats.net/ …etc…
… all with their completely separate content (file/media) folders and permalinks so that some random user on one site won’t see references to the other sites?
3. Just one more question (still in context). When I turned on Multisite it told me to create a folder called “blogs.dir”. Is that a special name or could I have named it “sites” like Drupal does?
Thank you very much all you smart and beautiful wordpress gurus.
Ron
1. Yes.
2. Yes. (the files will be in /wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/etc… but will LOOK like they’re in /files/etc… )
3. It’s a special name. Name the folder blogs.dir
Also, blogs.dir only contains *media* files. the blogs themselves are virtual and live only in the db.
These blogs are all domain mapped in one install:
ronandandrea.com
wpmututorials.com
atypicalhomeschool.net
atypicalife.net
Excellent! Thanks both of you.
I’ll give it a shot tonight (or this weekend).
Thread Starter
xzoom
(@xzoom)
Thanks a lot for your help! I will try it …
Hi xzoom, I hope you don’t mind me piggybacking on this thread. I think we really are trying to do the same thing, and when I get it working I’ll definitely try to explain what I had to do.
In the meantime, this was very confusing last night. I got the plugin installed but am not clear on what I need to do in cpanel with the domain config on bluehost and where WP-MS picks it up.
I guess my big question (to the gurus) now is this:
4. Is it REALLY necessary to have WP installed in the “home” directory (right under “public_html”) of my hosting account? I already have a Drupal multi-site installation running (with its own index.php right there) so I was hoping I could have a public_html/wordpress_super_admin/ installation on the same bluehost account with all the child wp sites under that sub directory . The fact that my admin wordpress installation is in a subdirectory may be the reason I’m having trouble making sense of the domain settings in bluehost. It works fine that way using the subdomain or subdirectory options, but maybe not the separatedomains that I want.
I’m committed to WordPress for future development and plan on eventually porting the drupal sites over after I get WP-MS up and running to my satisfaction, but if I have to take down the Drupal sites first, I will.
Thanks again, Ron
It’s harder to direct the mapped domains within your webhost when they are not on the primary account. instead of parking them, you need to use the add-on domain feature and change the folder name to be the same as the wp install.
That was not hard at all. Just takes some knowledge of the terminology and visualization of what’s going on.
I got a test set of 2 sites working with a wp install (adminsite.com) in a subfolder below the root of my webhost account, and it is not the main bluehost account. Those two other as yet unused sites were simply mapped with bluehost cpanel as add-ons pointing to the same subfolder as the adminsite installation (thanks Andrea). That is all it takes on bluehost. I reset the DNS zone files for all three relevant domains, which means you do not need to make any changes in the DNS Zone editor to make this work on bluehost. I’m pretty sure other quality shared hosting services like godaddy and hostgator are similar.
Then in WP-MS I used the cname option (not the ipaddress) in the Domain Mapping Configuration form. That cname is simply the wp-ms installation adminsite.com. I’m not sure how to tweak the domain options yet, but at this point the only one checked is “Permanent redirect”.
I had to add each sub “site” in WP-MS using a Site Address without the .com.
Then I added the 2 domains (using the .com suffix) under the Domain Mapping: Domains form and magically the 2 sites appeared when entered subsite2.com and subsite3.com in a browser address field. They show up without the adminsite.com in front of them.
This is obviously a brain dump (sp please excuse the typos and grammar flaws). I can provide more explicit details later if asked. This was only a test. I’m now going to play with it a bit to discover some features and map out how I want things organized for real.
My purpose in doing this is a bit different than the public multi-blog concept under which I think WP-MU was envisioned. I simply want all MY sites to work under one codebase and one database with a centralized admin function.
Congrats WordPress, this is a major step forward.
A couple more details to add:
I want to emphasize that my superadmin site is NOT in the root directory of my bluehost account. I’m sure it can be (and maybe should for simplicity) but apparently is not necessary. Mine is in a folder, one level below <home>/public_html/. On bluehost I used add-on domains, but I told it the site files live in an existing directory (the same one as the admin site).
In the domain mapping configuration page, I simply entered my “superadmin.com” in the Server CNAME domain field, and left the IP address field blank (even though I have a static IP through bluehost).
And in the domain mapping plugin, (on the Domain Mapping: Domains page) the Site ID is the ID you would see in your status bar when you hover over the site “Path” on the All Sites page. That should be made more obvious somehow.
Also on the domain mapping: domains page, I checked all my sub sites as “Primary” to make their URL show up on their address bar as subsite.com and not as adminsite.com/subsite
And one more thing: Someone I read on this subject hinted that you may have problems with your permalinks if you try to install multisite in a subdirectory under public_html, but so far I have not seen a problem and all my posts and pages seem to work fine. However, I am still in the exploratory/setup stage (nowhere near live) so I’m sure I’ll find a few snags.
