The A to Z of WordPress Multisite

WordPress Multisite is a very powerful piece of functionality built into WordPress which is often under-utilised. In this presentation I'll introduce you to Multisite and cover:

* The concepts of Multisite
* Installation and setup
* What differs from a standard WordPress installation
* The management of sites and users
* The management of plugins, themes, and settings
* Advanced usage
* Gotchas and best practices

This presentation is primarily aimed at people who have experience building or implementing WordPress sites but have yet to dip their toe into WordPress Multisite.

Presented at:
* WordCamp Brighton 2017
* WordCamp Oslo 2018

#wordpress #wcbtn

Transcript

1. The A to Z
   of
   WordPress Multisite
   

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2. John Blackbourn
   • WordPress core developer
   • Senior engineer at Human Made
   • Find me on Twitter, GitHub, WordPress.org:
   @johnbillion
   

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3. • The concepts of Multisite
   • Installation and setup
   • What differs from a standard WordPress installation
   • The management of sites and users
   • The management of themes, plugins, and settings
   • Advanced usage
   • Gotchas and best practices
   

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4. example.com
   example.com/site1
   example.com/site2
   example.com/site4
   example.com/site5
   example.com/site3
   

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12. • Groups of client sites
    • College or university departments
    • Company intranets
    • Localised or regional sites
    • Clubs, churches
    • Business franchises
    • Network of blogs
    Managing related sites
    

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13. • Scottish Schools National Intranet
    • Harvard University
    • Reuters News
    • New York Times
    Networks of blogs
    

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14. Site
    Site
    Site
    Site
    Site
    Site
    Network
    

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15. Prerequisites:
    1. In your wp-config.php:

    define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );
    2. Deactivate all your plugins
    

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18. However...
    wp core multisite-convert
    wp core multisite-install
    --title="My Network"
    --admin_email="admin@example.com"
    

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19. Multisite WP-CLI
    wp-cli.org
    

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20. wp post list
    --url="example.com/site1"
    wp option update blogname "Site Three"
    --url="example.com/site3"
    wp user list --network
    

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21. • Database tables
    • Separate uploads directories
    • Super Admins
    • Different capabilities for Admins and Editors
    • Network Admin screen
    What's new?
    

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22. Database tables
    wp_comments
    wp_commentmeta
    wp_options
    wp_posts
    wp_postmeta
    wp_term_relationships
    wp_term_taxonomy
    wp_terms
    wp_termmeta
    wp_users
    wp_usermeta
    wp_blogs
    wp_blog_versions
    wp_registration_log
    wp_signups
    wp_site
    wp_sitemeta
    wp_2_comments
    wp_2_commentmeta
    wp_2_options
    wp_2_posts
    wp_2_postmeta
    wp_2_term_relationships
    wp_2_term_taxonomy
    wp_2_terms
    wp_2_termmeta
    Single Site Multisite Each site on Multisite
    

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23. Separate uploads directories
    

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24. Super Admins
    A user that can do anything on any site
    on the whole network, and administer
    the network from Network Admin
    

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25. Administrators cannot:
    • Install plugins or themes
    • Use the plugin or theme editors
    • Create new users
    • Edit existing users
    • Update core/plugins/themes
    • Post unfiltered HTML
    Editors cannot:
    • Post unfiltered HTML
    Different capabilities for Admins and Editors
    

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26. Network Admin screen
    

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28. mtrunk.wp/wp-admin/network/sites.php
    Network Admin - Sites & Users
    

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29. mtrunk.wp/wp-admin/network/themes.php
    Network Admin - Themes & Plugins
    

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30. More drop-in plugins
    • sunrise.php
    • blog-deleted.php
    • blog-inactive.php
    • blog-suspended.php
    

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31. Multi-network
    

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32. REST API
    • Functions as expected on individual sites
    • Endpoints for network are in progress
    

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33. HTTPS
    Either use it (ideally), or don't use it
    

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34. Content syndication
    Not a reason itself to use Multisite
    • REST API
    • Elastic Search / ElasticPress
    

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35. /blog URL prefix
    Remove from permastructure in main site settings
    

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36. Plugins and libraries
    More on GitHub than WordPress.org
    

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37. User activity logging
    • Stream
    • Simple History
    

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38. Database sharding
    Don't even think about it.
    • Scale vertically first
    • HyperDB
    • LudicrousDB
    

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39. Multisite code is old
    upload_is_file_too_big()
    "This file is too big"
    

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40. Get involved
    • #core-multisite in
    • Bug fixing and improvements
    • 10 year old code
    

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41. Thanks!
    Find me on Twitter, GitHub, WordPress.org:
    @johnbillion
    

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