ted.byers

I have to disagree with you. Surely the purpose of especially this forum is to help deal with whatever issue arises in getting any and every part of WordPress to work. To be blunt, I am not looking for instruction on “on web server application configuration and administration”. Rather, although some system administration is necessary, what I am looking for is sufficient information to get all aspects of WordPress to work.

Right now, the update admin page is not working! That is inexcusable!

I have sent considerable time, now, ensuring that all the files and directories connected to wordpress have the right owner, and the right group membership, and I have added my sftpwp user to the www-data group. Since all wordpress has been made group writable, that ought to be sufficient to let sftpwp proceed with updating my wordpress installation. And indeed, the latest error that I reported above appears to have been resolved. But the misery continues. Now I get the following error:

Are you sure you want to do this?

Please try again.

What the hell does that mean?

It gives precisely no information about what failed, or why. The second question is a hyperlink, and I could click on it ’till the cows come home with precisely nothing changing. And the first question is especially annoying because it gives no option for the user to reply ‘YES!’

I develop software for a living, and if a subordinate developed a module for me that behaved like this, and which was similarly documented, that subordinate would be in serious trouble, at risk of needing to find alternate employment, perhaps as a basket weaver. The failing, in this instance, is in inadequate documentation (I haven’t examined the code, so I can’t comment on the quality of the code, save that error handling in this latest error leaves everything to be desired: yes, in my software, I include a little AI, sufficient to diagnose what may have gone awry and how it may be resolved).

Cheers

Ted

Thanks ClaytonJames

Yes, it is mostly server administration, but taks I would not be trying were I not trying to establish a smoothly operating installation of WordPress.

After trying to install the ssh2 extension you mentioned, and finding that failing (pecl install couldn’t find a stable release of the ssh2 extension), I found and successfully installed the sftp updater plugin. Alas, I may have an issue with how I configured my sftp user, as I get the following error:

Unable to locate WordPress Root directory.

Installation Failed

After doing that, I did see the appropriate option for using SFTP. (and yes, I was aware tha FTPS and SFTP are different things – I prefer to use SFTP, but will use FTPS if I can’t get SFTP working). In creating my SFTP user, I made a group for SFTP and restricted the membrs of this group to SFTP commands as well as to their own directory tree. I guess the problem becomes how to make a connection between my sftpwp user, which is a member of my new group, it’s home directory, and the wordpress root directory, that it can use. Any idea how I do this? I am hoping this is the final step, as I have the port mapping between my router and this server configured. I really don’t want to open very many ports, lest I make my machine vulnerable.

Thanks

Ted

I do not have cpanel.

The line that is being un/commenting is:

define( 'SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true );

That immediately follows the define for WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE, and before that for DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE.

I found the error, though. I had somehow missed the following.

define('MULTISITE', true);

Adding that makes it all work OK.

Thanks for your time.

Ted

Yep!

/*
define('SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true);
define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'byerspublishing.com');
define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/');
define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
define('BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
*/

Commenting out the above lines there is no problem with connecting to the database! Now, the question becomes, “WHY, and how is this to be fixed?” What do these defines actually do and how, are they needed for proper subdomain multisite funtionality, and how do we have both database access and these defines?

Thanks,

Ted

OK, here is wp-config.php:

<?php
/**
 * The base configurations of the WordPress.
 *
 * This file has the following configurations: MySQL settings, Table Prefix,
 * Secret Keys, WordPress Language, and ABSPATH. You can find more information
 * by visiting {@link http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php Editing
 * wp-config.php} Codex page. You can get the MySQL settings from your web host.
 *
 * This file is used by the wp-config.php creation script during the
 * installation. You don't have to use the web site, you can just copy this file
 * to "wp-config.php" and fill in the values.
 *
 * @package WordPress
 */

// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress');

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', <em>[redacted</em>]);

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', '<em>[redacted</em>]);

/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');

/** The Database Collate type. Don't change this if in doubt. */
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

/**#@+
 * Authentication Unique Keys and Salts.
 *
 * Change these to different unique phrases!
 * You can generate these using the {@link https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/ WordPress.org secret-key service}
 * You can change these at any point in time to invalidate all existing cookies. This will force all users to have to log in again.
 *
 * @since 2.6.0
 */

define('AUTH_KEY',         'Ld99#/|^!*l@4ibWX16-vA.nYxe-/3vvJSUyDGf(2OO!3w+nx/_1Xn ruUA_A.M');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  '|>]9wNZVC =6v0uxC^*})d+[msd1=ixuy~x6w};3 9T:+3}Cf49)O:0~WIZ)63sK');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',    '[B<s*Ut)cPA-+SY)iYyRU^=a9S>K*qe9-Zk5]TO&-uHL6AV 8{|%ur>lap^9zGd');
define('NONCE_KEY',        '-:!#%XedZ,(#/{AK:Oc{x<+7ddN ~;=/j,|-w[]UqB<fZ:.4N}&23 xA@euhCi1~');
define('AUTH_SALT',        'Ev].<QXr#QLo;-WG1o%n?mg(JDc|$)kRB]#ir|h|.T};K|:s{tCo.+Ke%lXl3/H');
define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'h +(!--A6]|.pxGQ#MP

Eqf!Y.mO@U+/A#Vj<k]K((>I/r/QWHma3o-G|-$l>8+9');
define('LOGGED_IN_SALT',   '<x<J>8S:Mrua-|AeSh&HeRk!R%9>Yio]oUq+R)(WT9/K#er@(+!fQ{@x@UT=7WUs');
define('NONCE_SALT',       '0i|SF<gpr{ AZ/B2H^BR1i_k~]5K=vAOS{~2cTHq:hgnjHQDoS q{iL~8lTfyk(');

/**#@-*/

/**
 * WordPress Database Table prefix.
 *
 * You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique
 * prefix. Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!
 */
$table_prefix  = 'wp_';

/**
 * WordPress Localized Language, defaults to English.
 *
 * Change this to localize WordPress. A corresponding MO file for the chosen
 * language must be installed to wp-content/languages. For example, install
 * de_DE.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to 'de_DE' to enable German
 * language support.
 */
define('WPLANG', '');

/**
 * For developers: WordPress debugging mode.
 *
 * Change this to true to enable the display of notices during development.
 * It is strongly recommended that plugin and theme developers use WP_DEBUG
 * in their development environments.
 */
define('WP_DEBUG', false);

/* Multisite */
define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );
define('SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true);
define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'byerspublishing.com');
define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/');
define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
define('BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

/** Absolute path to the WordPress directory. */
if ( !defined('ABSPATH') )
	define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__) . '/');

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');

And heree is my latest session, showing that the credentials entered into wp-config.php are correct and working:

ted@Ubuntu-Server:~$ mysql -u wordpress -pDidr39Qcab wordpress
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 59
Server version: 5.5.35-0ubuntu0.12.04.2 (Ubuntu)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> exit
Bye
ted@Ubuntu-Server:~$

So, no, the database details have not been changed.

What else can/should be checked?

Thanks

Ted

PS: I suppose I will need to change the user name and password, having posted this. Right?

Thanks Senff. That was it.

Alas, fixing that reveals another problem. I now get a new error, now: “Error establishing a database connection“. What makes this more odd is that there is no coresponding error in either the apache2 logs nor the MySQL logs. Further adding to the weirdness is that I can connect to the wordpress DB user/schema using the credentials I have in my wp-config.php file. So, what could possibly cause problem establishing a database connection when the database is up and running, and the credentials wordpress is configured to use work fine, in the mysql client? The wordpress installation script had no problem establushing a connection, to create all those tables that it did.

How do I force it to give me more detail as to why it couldn’t connect, and how do I fix it?

Thanks

Ted

Actually, it seems it gets more complicated, as I found http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress and it talks about group ownership, and that I hould retain ownership of some selection of the WordPress files. While the basic concepts are clear enough, it is looking more complex if one wants to be sure the wole site is as secure as it can be made. I don’t understand the documentation for chown and chmd well enough to be able to see how to follow the directions provided on the Hardening Wordpess page when it comes to file permissions, and still have the update work properly. A little extra guidance is needed.

Thanks

Ted