Multi Networks

Recently I’ve written about undoing and archiving the WordPress Multi Network setup on UMW Blogs I created eons ago to run various Faculty Academy sites, this post will be the opposite. I had the occasion this morning to revisit how to setup Multi Networks on WordPress Multisite (WPMS), and the process has gotten a bit easier for sure. I used the WP Multi Network plugin, and while it has not been updated for two years it still worked beautifully on WP version 4.9.4.

WP Multi Network

I made sure the multisite feature was enable for the WordPress instance I was working on using this guide. I am working with wildcard subdomains, so that was my network setup and in order for those to work I had to create a wildcard subdomain

*.mydomain.com

and pointed it at the directory where I have the WPMS installed. In my case the /home/public_html folder. After that was all setup, I added and network enabled the WP Multi Network plugin above. Once this is done, you go to the WPMS Network Admin page and setup your additional network. But before I do, I need to make sure my new network is all set. If you are running it off a new domain, like myotherdomain.com, then you would need to add that as an addon domain in cPanel:

Once that is done, you would once again need to make sure the wildcard subdomain is setup and pointed to the directory where the main WPMS lives (for me /home/public_html):

Once that is done, the last bit before we can create the new network is to go into the wp-config file and comment out the DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE line.

After that, you can head to the WPMS Network Admin dashboard and add a new network, which is as simple as adding the domain name and naming the site:

Once this is done, you will have not only various site, but multiple networks that can create unlimited sites as subdomains, such as reclaim.mydomain.com and hosting.myotherdomain.com. 

The plugin make it easy, but one issue to keep in mind is that you have to keep the plugin network enabled, otherwise the file structure for the additional network created gets wonky. The plugin corrects that as of now, but this is one potential issue to keep in mind.

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