gearoidc.com

Something Recursive

gearoid — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:03:47 +0000

Did you say something?

gearoid — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:25:07 +0000

Managing multiple domains in Wordpress MU

gearoid — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:25:48 +0000

update: 2009-09-30 Strike’d out steps that are not needed

These steps have been tested using Apache on a VPS using Parallels Plesk environment but they can be applied to any similar setup. For the purposes of this post lets say you have the following domains: rootdomain.com, otherdomain1.com & otherdomain2.com that you want to manage from one Wordpress MU setup.

Organise the domains

Create the following subdomains off rootdomain.com

sites.rootdomain.com , od1.sites.rootdomain.com & od2.sites.rootdomain.com

( note these are 3 seperate sub domain names and that od1/od2 are not subdomains of sites.rootdomain.com )

Software

Install Wordpress MU under sites.rootdomain.com

Download and install WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin by Donncha O Caoimh. I installed this in the mu-plugins directory

Command line work

For each of the following domains otherdomain1.com and otherdomain2.com

ln otherdomain1.com webroot directory to sites.rootdomain.com webroot directory
  $> cd /var/www/vhosts/otherdomain1.com
  $> ln -s /var/www/vhosts/rootdomain/subdomains/sites/httpdocs httpdocs

Now link the od1.sites.rootdomain.com to sites.rootdomain.com

ln od1.sites.rootdomain webroot directory to sites.rootdomain.com webroot directory
  $> cd /var/www/vhosts/rootdomain/subdomains/od1.sites/
  $> ln -s /var/www/vhosts/rootdomain/subdomains/sites/httpdocs httpdocs

Configuring Apache

To get Apache to follow the links that were setup above, under my Plesk install, I added the following rules to /etc/apache2/conf.d/subdomain.conf


   Options Indexes ExecCGI +FollowSymLinks MultiViews



   Options Indexes ExecCGI +FollowSymLinks MultiViews

Restart Apache.

Configure domains in Wordpress

Login to your Wordpress install @ http://sites.rootdomain.com/wp-admin/ and for each of the other domains create a blog of the same name as the subdomain created, so for otherdomain1.com create a blog called od1. When the domain is created go to its backend admin. Click the Domain Mapping link under Tools. Leave the ‘Server IP Address:’ box blank and just enter otherdomain1.com in the ‘Add new domain’ box. Do this for otherdomain2 blog

You should now be able to vistit http://otherdomain1.com and you will see Wordpress MU

Conclusion

The above seems a bit complex but once its done its done and it gets easier to each domain added. I have noticed some logout / edit issues for non-admin users under the above setup, I have not tracked down a reason for this yet, but stumbled upon a fix that I have to try and reproduce.

You might also run into problems say certain plugins, for example I use MapPress plugin which requires an API key. I have to generate 2 keys one for otherdomain1.com and od1.sites.rootdomain.com. I ended up hardcoding one key ( for otherdomain1.com ) in the plugin php file and entering one key in MapPress plugin admin options.

Extra Note(s)

2009-09-30:

1. WordPress MU could be installed in webroot/ for rootdomain.com rather than in a seperate subdomain. ( Just make sure you update the otherdomains to link to the new location. )

2. Make sure you setup WordPress to install blogs as subdomains and not in seperate paths

Hope this helps.

Full kudos to @jkeyes (http://keyes.ie) we had great fun working on the above.

Wet 'green' thinking

gearoid — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 01:40:28 +0000

As I was taking a shower last, I could not help but wonder, looking at the various plastic bottles in the shower area alone, how many plastic bottles we use each year for shampoo, conditioner, face wash, shower gel etc etc. A thought then struck me, imagine if one could buy bars of shampoo and conditioner.

A quick google of ‘Solid Shampoo bar’ returns quite a few results along with ’solid shampoo recipe’. I like the look of J.R.LIGGETT’S old-fashioned bar shampoo found here. I wonder the impact of the more high end brand manufacturers being ‘gently nudged’ to produce alternatives to their bottled ranges, would have on our planet… Imagine if hotels around the world replaced the small bottles of shampoo and conditioner with bars.

: Vo5 Bar o Shampoo

A SETI outpost somewhere

gearoid — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:11:00 +0000

Originally uploaded by gearoidco.

debugging your problems away

gearoid — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:25:00 +0000

debuging_life, originally uploaded by gearoidco.

the pearls of testing in a live environment ( programmers should know better )

recession treating

gearoid — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:59:00 +0000

Recession Treating, originally uploaded by gearoidco.

shopping for humanity

gearoid — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:25:00 +0000

shopping_for_humanity, originally uploaded by gearoidco.

nerdy humour

gearoid — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:47:00 +0000

nerdy humour, originally uploaded by gearoidco.

creationists 1 evolutionists 0

gearoid — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:21:00 +0000

creationists 1 evolutionists 0, originally uploaded by gearoidco.