Installing WordPress MU on a CPanel/WHM Server

Installing WordPress MU on a CPanel/WHM Server


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I was encountering some difficulties installing WordPress MU 1.0 using different subdomains, and I finally figured it out after some time, so I thought I’d do a walkthough to help fellow MU-wannabes.
I think its important, first to understand that different web hosts use different admin control panel systems, and mine is using CPanel/WHM. I have a reseller account, so I have access to the WHM console.
To triple confirm, your webhost admin should look something similiar to this:
and your WHM, if you are a reseller, should look like this:
Actually, on a second thought - it may not, because this is one of the skins… but just make sure you are using CPanel/WHM if you want to follow through with this walkthrough.
What are we going to achieve here?
At the end of the whole thing, you will install WordPress MU 1.0 on your server, using a different subdomain for each blog. So for example, if your domain is bloggingiscool.com, then you will be able to quickly create blogs like http://firstblog.bloggingiscool.com, http://secondblog.bloggingiscool.com… and so on.
In this installation, you will also be installing it in the root directory of your server (i.e. public_html), so http://bloggingiscool.com will be your main MU blog. You can choose to install it in a subdirectory, such that http://bloggingiscool.com/blogs as your main MU blog, but again I will cover only the first one. Go figure (duh, just dump the code one level deeper!), if you want to install it in a subdirectory.
Note that WordPress MU also offers another alternative, that is to install each blog in a different subdirectory. I will not be covering that here.
Lets get started।
http://www.blogopreneur.com/2006/11/06/installing-wordpress-mu-on-a-cpanelwhm-server/



Configure your wildcard DNS and sub domains (sounds geeky)
If you read the readme, it recommends you to Matt’s blog where he explains how to do so. But to me, it didn’t really help, because he was giving me a bunch of code - I had a graphical web interface for my reseller admin console.
Anyway, here’s what you need to do.
Log in to your WHM account. On the left, find and click “Edit DNS Zone”.
Your accounts appear on the right. Select the domain you use for your WPMU installation, and click “Edit”
You will see a bunch of text boxes and a bunch of numbers!
Whoa! What is this? To be frank, I don’t know much either, but what I know is that messing with these number is no fun (because I’ve messed up with them before, and caused some trouble for the server admin :mrgreen:)… but I know what to do now.
You will see something like this. (erm.. minus the red arrows. Those are my drawings. Nice? :))
Create a new entry after “Add New Entries Below this Line”.
You should specify * for domain, 14400 for TTL (default value), A for record type, and your server IP address. To find out what IP you should type, refer to the record with your domain above.
Click save.
Go ahead and retrieve the same page again (i.e. Edit DNS Zone -> Select Your Account). You should see the new entry there.
If that is the case, you are done with WHM. *phew*
BUT you are not totally done yet!
Step 7: Erm… part 2 of step 6? I promise this is the last part!
You need to add something to your httpd.conf file.
I personally do not have the opportunity to do so, so I had to mail my friendly server admin to do it.
Here is what you need to add:
DocumentRoot /home/{CPANEL_USERNAME}/public_htmlBytesLog domlogs/{YOUR_DOMAIN}-bytes_logUser {CPANEL_USERNAME}Group {CPANEL_USERNAME}ServerAlias {YOUR_DOMAIN} *.{YOUR_DOMAIN}ServerName www.{YOUR_DOMAIN}CustomLog domlogs/{YOUR_DOMAIN} combined
Where:
{SERVER_IP_ADDRESS} is your server IP address
{CPANEL_USERNAME} is your CPanel username. Normally this should be eight characters or less. This is the username you use to log into your CPanel console for your account
{YOUR_DOMAIN} refers to your domain, e.g. bloggingiscool.com
So, giving an example, where my IP is 123.456.789.123, CPanel username is blogcool and domain is bloggingiscool.com, the code is like this:
DocumentRoot /home/blogcool/public_htmlBytesLog domlogs/bloggingiscool.com-bytes_logUser blogcoolGroup blogcoolServerAlias bloggingiscool.com *.bloggingiscool.comServerName www.bloggingiscool.comCustomLog domlogs/bloggingiscool.com combined
Again, you (or your server admin) need to add this to your httpd.conf file, and according to Matt, this entry must come after any valid subdomain VirtualHost entries you may have. So if you already have another subdomain on that same account, then make sure this entry come after the subdomain’s entry.
Then you are really finally done!
You can login now and start whipping out blogs. Remember your password is sent to the email address you specified.
So.. installing WordPress MU is not as easy as the walk in the park right? At least not for me! But just imagine what you could do when you know you can create blogs on the fly, on your own domain!
Give me more time to fiddle with WPMU, and I’ll tell you more.
Oh… If anyone with access to a httpd.conf could provide details on the part to add the VirtualHost record, then it’ll be wonderful!
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