Different URL for Admin of WordPress MultiSite

You might be able to trick that with .htaccess…

This year old post touches on it: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/map-wp-admin-as-a-subdomain?replies=10

Hi Mika,

Thank you yet again for your assistance.

I went through your link but unfortunately the link you sent has the URL to the solution which is not working.

Do you think this solution is discussed somewhere else?

Many Thanks.

I think no one’s actually wrangled it into working yet.

What’s the use case, out of curiosity? We may be able to come up with a workaround if we have the bigger picture.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

I’ll be as precise as possible while explaining. So within the organisation we are setting a multisite setup for 6 websites. Our main site is made in Java (https://www.oursite.com) and the place where we are going to put our website would be in PHP (https://www.oursite.com/multiste)

Now what we want are three things to be achieved:-

1. The site will be hosted at https://www.oursite.com/multiste but the admin site should be accessible at https://siteadmin.oursite.com/multisite/wp-admin. This also goes for the admin for child sites as they should also be asseccible at (e.g.) https://siteadmin.oursite.com/multisite/site1/wp-admin. Externally this is done because we’ll lock down https://www.oursite.com/multiste/wp-admin so that no intruder can assess the site’s admin through usual route, plus we can direct the admin from a different server. Internally, it is just a name change for the admin.
2. Sites should be accessible on parent domain for eg:

1. Main site should be at https://www.oursite.com/multiste
2. Child site should be https://www.oursite.com/multisite/site1/, https://www.oursite.com/multisite/site2/, https://www.oursite.com/multisite/site3/, …

• All subsites should be under /multisite for eg: https://www.oursite.com/multisite/site1/ …

Uptill now, I made a “multisite” directory on the server and installed WP multi install there. This took care of last two points, but I really can’t figure out the first point.

I’ll be very thankful if you can help/assist me in any regard. If you have an alternative to achieve the security, that’d be helpful too as then we’ll change our strategy.

Thanks a lot.

Ah. Okay. That actually helps a lot ??

Externally this is done because we’ll lock down https://www.oursite.com/multiste/wp-admin so that no intruder can assess the site,

Honestly, that’s not going to do you much good. Moving wp-admin is a hassle, and it doesn’t protect you at all, since there are still going to be traces visible in your source code here and there (and it’s really not much use since the attacks to login will come through wp-login.php

Read https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Hardening_WordPress#Securing_wp-admin

plus we can direct the admin from a different server.

You MIGHT be able to trick that one with a symlink (someone else mentioned doing it on single site), but again, if the reason is security, you’re _doing_it_wrong(). None of that actually makes things secure.

You are absolutely right.

But I guess you might have gotten a clue by now, that this is less about security and more about red-tapism. People in the management think that WP also works with out-of-sight-is-out-mind strategy.

Oh I live in Red Tape Land ??

I would tell them ‘It’s unsupported by the vendor to move the /wp-admin folder, and their official security recommendations are as follows…’

Then explain how .htaccess would protect you better (if you only want internal people using wp-admin, you can just lock that to your IP addresses, we do that here).

Sadly this is a case where you have to teach management that sometimes tech has to be installed in a specific way. You can’t put Monster Truck wheels on a Honda Civic, after all!

?? yah that’s absolutely true.

I guess that’s the route I should be taking.

Thank you very much for all your assistance, I’d definitely post back how I catered with this situation.

Best Regards