Wordpress Multi-user edition (WPMu) is able to be installed and used on the shared hosting environment. As a provider of Hosting services for 2 different companies, we receive requests asking if this is supported and if it can be run on the service. As a user personally going through this on my own domains in the steadfast environment, Kevin asked me to post this in respects to my experience on attempting to make this work.

The first thing to know is that the WPMu has a readme file in the main directory which is hard to understand. So this posting is here to assist with setting up the WPMu and using it effectively with the service.

One thing to note is that all the accounts created will be accessing the same database, so if you have a lot of users there is a possibility of system slowness and the reaching of CGI concurrency limits. If you are using a shared hosting service you could probably run 20 to 25 users with no difficulties on a single database.

As I personally use the H-Sphere to control my service i will mostly be sticking to this as my main example. I will also provide info on installing this service on any shared hosting service.

The software package for WPMu can be difficult to find. Here is the direct link.. It is suggested to download the .tar.gz file and upload that the server to save time and bandwidth. Once it is on the server, you can unpack it. The file contains a folder named wordpress-mu-(version number) so you are safe to unpack it anywhere. If you wish to use this as your main site, you can simply move the files from this folder into your main domain folder.

Log into your control panel and create a MySQL Database for the installation.

At this point, if you have any other wordpress installed inside this particular domain name folder, that you disable it. if you do not disable previous installations of Wordpress, the WPMu will not install. To do this, locate and rename your wp-config.php file to something else, such as wp-config.php.bak. By doing this you will disable your Wordpress.

In your browser, go to the WPMu installation. So type http://www.domainname.com/ or if the installation is in a directory http://www.domainname.com/folder/. The WPMu installation will start up and request the information for your Database. Put in the information, but do not submit it yet. You have an important choice to make still on this screen.

Using the radio buttons, select either to use Sub-domains (http://sub.domain.com) or folders (http://www.domain.com/folder/). this is important as this will create the address structure to how your WPMu will be browsed.

If you select Directory, you will need the following script to have the virtual directory function work:

RedirectMatch 301 (.*) http://domain.com1$

If you select the Sub-domain feature, you will need to submit a ticket with Steadfast and ask to have the "wildcard serveralias added to your virtualhost".

Once you have selected, submit the information and the WPMu will be installed. A username and password will be displayed. Record this information and use it to log into your Dashboard for the first time. The password can be changed once you are signed in.

NOTE: If you selected the directory structure, you will need to locate the htaccess.dist file which is in the main WPMu folder. Open the file for editing and add the code line located above into a blank space in the file. Save the file as ".htaccess" (without the quotes). If you selected the sub-domain option, you will want to change this file over to .htaccess, but do not add any lines of code to the file.

After that, you can sign into the main panel at http://domain.com/wp-admin or http://domain.com/folder/wp-admin depending on your installation type.

Once logged in, it is a journey of self discovery. Most themes word regular wordpress will work with WPMu, but it might be best to download them directly from the WPMu site.

Most information on the compatibility can be found here.

Enjoy and happy blogging.

If you have any specific questions or testing which needs to be performed, please feel free to use the contact form on http://shadowknight.ca to contact me.

Jason "shadowknight" A.
Hosting Technical Support
http://shadowknight.ca