Thanks to (nz)dave for this image

My standard WordPress installation wizard starts after you have a domain up and running. WordPress Multi User (WPMU) installation requires some changes to how your domain is configured. Specifically, you need to change DNS records if you want user blogs to be userblog.domain.com rather than www.domain.com/userblog.

I need to do a separate Multi User Wizard, but for now, I will list all the steps I took to get WPMU running. I’m pretty sure that the plugins and other configuration steps will differ, so I will generate the first phase of my Multi User Wizard over the next few days.

For now, the installation steps, with a couple of warnings, are:

Domain Hosting

If you are running your own dedicated server, you will probably know how to get the domain running. If so, move on to WPMU installation. If not, there are notes in the README file, but please note that the link for DNS advice has changed slightly.

If you run a typical shared hosting service using cPanel and WHM (WebHost Manager), there are some easy to follow instructions from Blogopreneur.

I am keeping new blogs restricted to people I can trust, so I am not bothered about wildcard DNS settings. Each time I add a new blog, I simply redirect the blog manually in cPanel. It takes seconds to do this in the Subdomains option in cPanel.

WordPress Multi User Install

All versions of WordPress that I have installed, require editing of wp-config.php. This is frowned upon by WPMU installation, so all you really need to ensure is that directory permissions are OK.

1. Copy WPMU to your web server.
2. Ensure permissions on root folder (or wherever you have copied WPMU to) and wp-content folder is set to 777. Permission changes will not normally be required – please see update to WordPress MU Installation.
3. Navigate to yourdomain.com, and an installation form should appear.
4. In cPanel, MySQL Databases, copy and paste the database name and user name into the form. I use this method to avoid any chance of a mistype.

That’s it! Note the auto generated password, login, and change the password to something more memorable. Whilst you are doing this, it’s a good thing to clear the “Use the visual editor when writing” box, unless you have zero HTML experience.

Also, do not forget to set permissions, for the directories in Step 2, back to 755.

See the next thrilling instalment for tips on configuring WPMU.

But first, an important note about what to do if things go wrong.

You may get a message “Error establishing a database connection”. This probably means that you have mistyped the database details – which is why I recommend copy and paste. You can confirm that this is so by scrutinizing the wp-config.php that has been created.

You may also get a message “No WPMU site defined on this host”.

For both these messages, you must restart the WPMU installation from scratch. Delete (or rename) wp-config.php on your web server. In cPanel, phpMyAdmin, drop all tables from the database. Then start again at step 1.