I Am Blogie

The 13th major update of WordPress is finally here! A little late coming, but more than welcome to all WordPress lovers. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s the merger of the two branches of WordPress and now it’s multi-site enabled.

I’m working on a Web project that’s built on WordPress 3.0 and that will take advantage of its multi-site functionality. It’s already live but not yet completed, and it’s on MINDANAW.net. It’ll be a site that will let dedicated bloggers of Mindanao have their own subdomained blogs. I’m still working on which plugins to deploy, as well as collecting WordPress themes (so far I’ve included free themes from Woothemes.com).

There’s going to be a catch, though: only blogs that commit to helping Mindanao, in one way or another, will be accepted. The service will be offered free of charge — just as long as the bloggers on board join the community in the advocacy of promoting peace & development in the Philippine South. I’ll announce the site’s launch once it’s ready via the Mindanao Bloggers Community site.

Kudos to Matt and his Automattic team for Thelonious (click the link to see a video of WP3.0).

WordPress 3.0 is set to be released this month, and I can’t tell you how very excited I am to get my hands on it. I do have the beta2 version, and I’ve been playing around with it. There are quite a few new stuff you can expect from WP3.0, but the most significant update (in my view) is its multi-site functionality. Read: WordPress and WordPress MU are now being merged.

For the benefit of those who are as yet unaware, WordPress μ (MU or “multi-user”) is a branch of WordPress that lets super administrators create a network of blogs in one installation. This is, in fact, what powers wordpress.com blogs.

I’ve finally gotten the multi-site (or multi-user) functionality of WordPress 3.0 beta2! And I’d like to share how I did it. You may choose not to use this functionality and use WordPress 3.0 as a single-site blog, but if you do want this awesome feature, do read on!

Here are the salient details of my WordPress environment:

Before installing WordPress, you need to add this entry to your chosen domain name’s DNS table: *.domain.tld. 1400 in A {IP address}. Let’s assume your domain name is myblognet.ph, and the IP address that your web host has assigned you is 222.111.2.3. If you don’t have access to DNS, ask your host to do this part for you. The entry should look something like this:

[bash toolbar="false"]
*.myblognet.ph. 1400 in A 222.111.2.3
[/bash]

Then, you’ll need to change some stuff in your Apache configuration. Please be careful with this and triple-check your work at each step, to ensure you won’t accidentally mess things up. You’ll need to access the httpd.conf file (in my setup, this file is located in /usr/local/apache/conf/), and update the VirtualHost section containing the domain name you’re using for WP3.0. To wit (highlit lines):

[bash highlight_lines="3,4" toolbar="false"]

ServerName myblognet.ph
ServerAlias *.myblognet.ph
ServerAlias www.*.myblognet.ph
# more code here…
# no need to edit them!

[/bash]

You should then execute the following command (via SSH) so that the VirtualHost changes you made will take effect.

[shell toolbar="false"]
>> /usr/local/cpanel/bin/apache_conf_distiller –update
[/shell]

Your hosting environment may be different, so if you’re doing this on your own, please ask your host about the command above. Tip: use the locate command in SSH to find files and executables; e.g., locate httpd.conf.

Then, execute the following to restart your Web server.

[shell toolbar="false"]
>> /etc/init.d/httpd restart
[/shell]

Now, go ahead and install WordPress. Upon successful installation, add the following directive to your wp-config.php file. It would be a good idea to place this line (#83 below) just above the part that says /* That's all, ... */

[php num="83" highlight_lines="83" toolbar="false"]
define(‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true);

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
[/php]

Login to your dashboard and click on Tools » Network. The next screen will guide you through some more setup instructions, particularly for your wp-config.php and .htaccess files. Make sure to choose the sub-domain functionality, to be able to give your users a sub-domained site, such as http://pokerclub.myblognet.ph.

Once that’s done, you will notice a new menu item above the home icon: the Super Admin. And voilá, you now have a working multi-site WordPress installation! Go ahead and test it by creating new sites.

If you have questions, please feel free to drop a line below.