Multisite redirecting https domains incorrectly

  • Resolved bzerkmultimedia

    (@bzerkmultimedia)


    5 years, 7 months ago

    I’ll preface this by saying that my WordPress Multisite worked for years without issue until recently.

    Not long ago, I bought a UCC SSL certificate with enough Subject Alternative Names to cover most of the major sites on my network. It was applied without issue and worked for several months.

    Then I attempted to add a new domain name from an external host to my hosting account. I had done this before without issue. After parking the domain on my account, I added it as a SAN to my SSL and pointed an A record at my ip. I already had the site set up on the network, so I changed the Site Address to https and thought I was done. Suddenly, however, every site on my network that used https now pointed to another site.

    I used my hosting space for some time before switching to Multisite, so there are a few websites stored in subfolders that are outside of the network. The site now being pointed to was one of them. I had included it on my UCC SSL, but that was the only connection between it and my network, which is run off an installation in public_html. While a little bit messy and in need of organization, the presence of a network running on subdomains and a few separate WordPress installations in an unrelated set of subfolders had never caused any problems.

    In an attempt to isolate the issue, I removed all my network sites from the UCC SSL, as well as the site that was being linked to. Removing sites from https and changing their Site Address back to http fixed the problem. Adding them to https again caused the same issue. When I removed the incorrectly linked site, it seemed to have no effect. Sites using https on the network still tried to link to the https version of the site.

    After checking wp_options in my database for both the network, subsites, and the subfolder site, I can’t find any reason for the redirects. The only thing I can see is that when using a browser console to view the Headers, the Request URL, in this case https://downtownbeaumont.org/, is correct. The Remote Address, however, points to the ip corresponding to https://cajunheritagefest.org/. Unfortunately, I have no idea what sets the Remote Address. It’s beyond my level of experience.

    So to summarize, every https site on my network now points to https://cajunheritagefest.com/. The only relation between that site and my network sites are that it was on the same UCC SSL certificate. Currently, cajunheritagefest.com is no longer on the cert, but https sites are still attempting to point to it, leading me to believe that somewhere a value got changed that needs to be fixed. I’m including a link to https://downtownbeaumont.org/, which is currently on the cert and exhibiting the faulty behavior. Is there anyone out there that can steer me in the right direction on this?

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • Revoked certificate https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=downtownbeaumont.org
    List domain cajunheritagefest.com
    Open ticket with Godaddy.

    with multisite you can create subdomains or directories of the same domain and not different.

    Example1 directory (https://www.multisite.org/wp/) in wp_config.php

    define('MULTISITE', true);
define('SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', false);
define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'multisite.org');
define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/wp/');
define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
define('BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);

    https://www.multisite.org/wp/wp-admin/network/setup.php
    Note* DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE is multisite.org (network) for other different domain another WordPress installation.

    Example 2 subdomain (https://www.multisite.org/) in wp_config.php
    Configure your DNS for subdomain of multisite.org https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Tools_Network_SubPanel

    define('MULTISITE', true);
define('SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true);
$base ='/';
define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'multisite.org');
define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/');
define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
define('BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);

    https://www.multisite.org/wp-admin/network/setup.php

    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Create_A_Network I’m sorry not to help with your problem but now you know the limits of a multi-site installation

    if you use a plugin and modification wp_config.php you can have more than one network example https://www.multisite.org https://www.anothermultisite.com https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/wp-multi-network/ don’t use it.
    Always backup file and MySQL before any modiication.

    • This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by autotutorial.
    Thread Starter bzerkmultimedia

    (@bzerkmultimedia)

    Thanks for your replies.

    I’m aware that a network needs to use either subdomains or subdirectories. My network uses subdomains. The subfolders I mentioned are buried elsewhere on the server and have no relation to the network other than being on the same hosting account. It has worked for years in this configuration. Is there any reason it should suddenly stop?

    Also, I can see how it might be confusing that cajunheritagefest has a revoked certificate. I can put it back on the cert if necessary so it’s easy to tell that when you go to https://downtownbeaumont.org it redirects to https://cajunheritagefest.com for no immediately discernible reason. Other sites on my network that attempt to use https do the same. Sites on my network that do not use https ( example: https://setxac.org/ ) work fine. It isn’t that the entire network isn’t working, it’s that either the network or some other step in the request is mishandling https requests (as far as I can tell).

    Also also, because I’m out of my depth here, if your above replies are directly related to the solution of my problem you’ll have to explain it like I’m 5.

    Thread Starter bzerkmultimedia

    (@bzerkmultimedia)

    And for further context, here’s a subfolder site (one of my older ones) which uses the same UCC SSL Certificate as the other sites. It works, supporting the idea that the problem is somewhere in the network’s https requests.

    https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=ebenezerbeaumont.org

    Back up your files and database.
    without revoking the certificate if you change from https to http all the urls match the domain (downtownbeaumont.org)?
    Change http to https now.
    Look and don’t change anything in the dabase wp_site, wp_x_options (x does not necessarily have to be an incremental integer value) and wp_blogs tables wp_site is the network while in wp_blogs you find the paths of the network and sites.
    is the right domain?
    The remote address sets it godaddy SSL.

    Thread Starter bzerkmultimedia

    (@bzerkmultimedia)

    UPDATE: For those who encounter similar problems, I have figured out what was causing my issue. TL;DR: uninstall and reinstall. That’s right, the oldest fix in the book.

    Wordpress Multisite handles domain mapping by routing incoming calls to your ip through the primary domain on your hosting account. I never could find exactly where that code is located, but in my case the issue was that when I added a Subject Alternative Name to my UCC SSL (which had been installed by GoDaddy), the certificate was validated and reissued. At some point during this process the auto installer must have uninstalled the certs on the sites listed on my hosting and reinstalled them. GoDaddy marks the first domain installed as primary and apparently doesn’t check to make sure that the previous primary domain is given preference. A new domain was marked primary, which meant that all incoming calls to my ip were sent there instead of to my multisite installation.

    The fix for this was simple: uninstall the sites in your SSL management on your hosting panel and reinstall them in the proper order, primary first. Note that on my GoDaddy cPanel, there was an option to “Make Primary” beside each site besides the primary. This option did nothing. Only reinstalling could change the primary.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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