Aug 18, 2008

How to install Wordpress MU in 8 steps

This is a documentation of my first attempt to install Wordpress MU. Since others will certainly face this situation I thought it would be helpful to tell my story.

The first steps are very straightforward. It’s only until you begin the installation that you’ll most likely encounter problems. I should note that I’m coming at this from a background in having installed the single-blog version of Wordpress many times before with no problems however in hindsight, my assumptions about WordPress have led to problems installing Wordpress MU due to the differences between it and the single-blog version of Wordpress which I only later discovered - so don’t assume.

Briefly, the differences I encountered related to database design and configuration. Another issue I had was due to my local (WAMP) development environment which produced the following error message right from the start:

“Installing to http://localhost/ is not supported. Please use http://localhost.localdomain/ instead.”

I didn’t know what http://localhost.localdomain/ was and clicking the link they gave me didn’t do anything except hang my computer. After some quick Googling, I discovered that using 127.0.0.1 (instead of ‘localhost’) remedied my problem. If this doesn’t work for you then… you’re on your own.

Let’s get started…

Step 1: Download Wordpress MU (http://mu.wordpress.org/download/)

Step 2: Extract all files into desired folder (ex: http://www.yourdomain.com/blogs/)

Step 3: Read README.txt

Step 4: Enable mod-rewrite

For Apache on my machine, mod-rewrite is not enabled by default. Instructions for enabling it are well documented online.

Step 5: Create Database (without any tables)

In PHPMyAdmin this task is fairly simple (assuming you’re working local or have root access). (Creating a database is one of the things that the installer cannot do for you.)

Step 6: Begin installation

Point your browser to whichever directory you extracted your files to (ex: http://www.yourdomain.com/blogs/). The index.php file will load automatically and either throw more error messages at you or present you with a friendly “Installing WordPress µ” screen. If you have reached the latter, you will need to make some choices and fill in some forms before proceeding. An important choice will be to decide on using sub-domains or sub-directories. This is another topic which has been well documented so I won’t go into detail. I chose to use subdirectories so this article may be more applicable if you choose to do the same.

Finish off this first step by entering your DB info and other details and clicking ’submit’.

Step 7: Fail installation and start over

This isn’t actually part of the process but I failed here so I want to document it. Basically my install just hung. After I clicked submit, I was presented with some waiting and then a page which said “Wordpress µ” or something and when I refreshed the screen, I see “My Blog” with an ‘Error 404 - Not Found’ message. Furthermore, my login page is not styled and I never received a login/password which leads me to believe something didn’t finish during the install process. My only choice was to delete the files and database and re-try.

deleting files….
deleting database….
extracting files again…

Ok - Round 2…

Fortunately this time my computer did not hang. If your installation was successful, you will see a screen with the message ‘Installation Finished! Congratulations! Your WordPress µ site has been configured.”

You can also point your browser to the folder into which you extracted your files (ex: http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/) and if you see your blog title + ‘Just another weblog’ then you’re good to go.

Step 8: Log in and make sure everything looks good

Traditionally you would log in to your Wordpress Admin control panel via http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/wp-admin/ however when I do this, I get bounced to http://127.0.0.1/wp-admin/ which just shows ‘Not Found’. With WPMU you need to go to http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/wp-login.php and enter the username/password which was given to you on the installation completion screen.

If you can successfully log in then you’re done! From here you can start posting, try adding new accounts, change your theme, etc. If you encounter any problems I haven’t addressed here, please post them and we’ll see if we can’t find a solution.

BTW, the website I used for this quick tutorial (www.JealousBrother.com) is a site which I built that just launched a couple weeks ago. It’s a rivalry based interactive social networking site. We’ve installed MU and are still figuring on whether to fully integrate it with the site (every new user gets a blog automatically) or just allow new users to ‘activate’ their blog when they want it.

If anyone has any experience doing this / suggestions / advice / etc. I’m very open to hearing what you’ve got.

23 Comments, Comment or Ping

Samuel Diamond

This is a great tutorial. I am surprised no one has crowned you king. The MU forums are scary and full of people sticking their noses at you. Its great to see someone who took some time to show how to install MU and give an idea of re-installing if it fails.

I am going to try it now. I use a big hoster that says they have Apache enabled so if i have anything extra I’ll let you know.

Sep 25th, 2008
Samuel Diamond

Hey, I think you should go into step 3 more. I am not really sure about adding the code to the global variables. It seems easy, but I am wondering exactly if it is needed or not for shared hosting.

Sep 25th, 2008
Lorna

This is the least intimidating of all the WordPress MU installation tutorials I’ve read so far. Thanks for sharing this, I’ll be bookmarking this in case I need to install the MU version.

Oct 15th, 2008
Videos Musicales

How to install it for subdomains version , i.e blogs.domain.com

Oct 31st, 2008
Kevin

Just stumbled across your site.

I was thinking of opening a number of niche blogs and considering WordPress MU but I have several questions.
Is WP MU for large numbers of blogs; I mean anything greater than say ten? If you only intend to have, say, four or five up and perhaps delete them on a regular basis (thinking of short term niche marketing)

On some sites I’ve visited it suggests that WP MU is a hungry beast - anybody care to comment

Finally a good article - I have it bookmarked just in case I do decide to go WP MU

Kevin
Armagh City
Ireland

Nov 1st, 2008
Raúl

Hi,

thank you for this tutorial. I believe that it can be really helpfull for people like me that doesnt have a large knowledge about php, apache, etc.

Something that seams to be a quite easy can become a HUGE headache.

Raúl.

Jan 19th, 2009
srinivasanm

Hello,

I trying to install in my offline server (ang.myblog.com/blog). After successful intallation i got the a “Error 404 not found”.

Could any one come-across such issues during the installation of WordPress MU.

Note:
I followed the instructions of Read me.

Thanks and Regards,
Sri

Feb 26th, 2009
Gowthaman

Thanks a TON

Mar 27th, 2009
Dirk Nowitzki

Why not just use b2evolution? It’s multi-blog out of the box and doesn’t create 5 million db tables every time a new blog is created.

Blogs can be aggregated or stand alone and you can choose sub-directories and sub-domains. You can do tons of things with b2evolution. They have an installer, so no manual editing of the config file and no jacking around with wordpress mu mysteries.

May 6th, 2009
Shane

Hey,

I’ve been trying to install this locally and I’m having some problems.
Everything installs fine, but when I go to login using the un and pw given to me by the installer, it doesn’t work. There is no error message, the page just reloads with empty fields.

Any help on this one would be awesome!

Thanks

Jun 23rd, 2009
Jon Kingston

If only WordPress.org would put up a tutorial this good! Following theirs led to nothing but dead ends.

I’m trying to install buddypress. Anyone have any experience with buddy press?

Aug 4th, 2009
Bob

Your tutorial is better then the readme.txt. Good job. Deffinately would have saved me some time if I had found it before my MU install.

Aug 12th, 2009
Thegone84

Still getting some issues with installing on wamp. Says i gotta have localhost.localdomain instead of localhost????

Than being said, you tutorial is awesome. Nice and simple

Aug 21st, 2009
Andrea_R

http://localhost/ is the default name of your local computer. To change it to localhost.locadomain ( or anything really) you woudl have had to edit your computer’s host file. naturally, on a webserver live on the internet, hooked to a real domain, you don’t get this message.

And to reinstall, the only thing you have to delete is any tables in the database and the .htaccess file (not htaccess.dist).

For further help, I’ve got a whole blog devoted to WordpressMU.

Aug 28th, 2009
bisnis internet

This article is helpful, thank very much.

Sep 9th, 2009
dbeloved

@Thegone84 use http://127.0.0.1 to enter into your localhost and you can continue from there.

I have not finished my installation…

Let me continue.

Sep 29th, 2009
Brow

Thanks! the 127.0.0.1 helped big time.

Feb 25th, 2010
Sajid

i have installed the wordpress-mu successfully.
but when i m going to login with correct admin username and password it doesn’t make an error but again redirects me to the login page. can anybody help me out of this?

Mar 12th, 2010
Jay

Thanks for the article, it makes the installation of MU a breeze

Mar 15th, 2010
Normaderm

thank for you guide

Mar 19th, 2010
Sash

Hello i tried to install wp mu on wamp but i got this error

Warning!

Installing to http://localhost/ is not supported. Please use http://localhost.localdomain/ instead.

any idea how to solve this?

May 4th, 2010
Vlado

Sash, will you, PLEASE, read the article, before asking? I got the same problem and I read the solution here.

That’s the main reason to drop a line here - Dennis, thanks a lot, mate!

May 24th, 2010
Terry

I’m a newbee and this helped a lot. Hadn’t heard of Apache. Now I know a lot. Thanks.

Aug 11th, 2010