Domain Mapping
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Root Problem: When I am logged in as superadmin, I cannot reach the dashboard of any mapped domain site.
When I click on My Sites >> Unmapped Site >> Dashboard, I get to the appropriate Dashboard. This works as expected.
However, when I click on My Sites >> Mapped Site >> Dashboard, I am asked for a login, even tho I am superadmin.
If I skirt around this and enter the default URL with the site slug, it does not work. I end up at the primary site’s dashboard.
I have read that this login redirect problem is a cookies issue, but I have had no luck with those solutions. And it does not explain why the URL for the mapped site dashboard is taking me to the primary/default site’s dashboard.
Here are the details of how I got here…
I have a multisite that has been in place for about 3 years.
– it has several subsites
– it uses subdirectories (subdomains set to false)
– two of the sites have a mapped domain
– it was originally set up with the WPMUDEV Domain Mapping plugin (which is now legacy b/c of domain mapping since wp 4.5)
– I had auto updates disabled and was on version 5.1(?) when this happened (now on 5.2.2)About 10 days ago, out of the blue, “something” failed miserably. I did not do any updates or make any changes to the site. There were other symptoms at first, which in retrospect seem somewhat coincidental but they may have been causative. When the smoke cleared and I got my site working again, there was an admin toolbar problem (not the issue I am reporting today) and a problem with links to the mapped domain dashboards.
I have since learned that other people who were using the MU Domain Mapping plugin experienced very similar issues around the same time.
I set up a test site. It was created as an exact copy of the original, so the database is the same, but
– all plugins have been moved to a temp folder
– all mu-plugins have been moved to a temp folder
– all drop-in plugins have been moved to a temp folderStill, with all these things eliminated, the admin-side mapping is not working correctly, as described above.
The default WP domain mapping instructions simply say to put the mapped domain into the URL field on the Sites >> [Site] >> Edit first screen. This changes siteurl and homeurl to the same value.
It also makes the Dashboard URL in the My Sites menu mapped domain also: e.g., https://dev.nroc.org/wp-admin. However, when I use that link, I am faced with a login screen. My superadmin login does not work.
But by using the default domain, with the site slug in it (https://dev.nrocnetwork.org/nroc/wp-admin) I do get to the Dashboard without a login. However, it is not the Dashboard of the mapped domain site /nroc/. It is the Dashboard of the primary/default network site (ID 1)
I can work around this by manually setting the siteurl to https://dev.nrocnetwork.org/nroc, so that the links in the My Sites menu are usable. But really all this does is save me the trouble of typing the URL manually. It doesn’t really solve anything.
I tested further by creating a new subsite, and mapped my extra domain to that site. The same thing happens. I can now get to the admin dashboard for the site I want to get to! But the domain is not mapped to it, so on the front end, the site is broken.
I have included what I think are the relevant constants from wp-config below. I have fiddled with various constants to fix this. None of them have had an effect. You can see what I have tried, and what is currently commented in and out.
/* Multisite */ define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true ); define('MULTISITE', true); define('SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', false); define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'dev.nrocnetwork.org'); define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/'); define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1); define('BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1); // define('COOKIE_DOMAIN', ''); // define('COOKIE_DOMAIN', $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']); // define('DOMAINMAPPING_ALLOWMULTI', true); // define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true); /* these were recommended for fixing a redirect loop, but they are not helping now */ // define('ADMIN_COOKIE_PATH', '/'); // define('COOKIE_DOMAIN', ''); // define('COOKIEPATH', ''); // define('SITECOOKIEPATH', ''); /* baseline home and siteurl */ define( 'WP_HOME', 'https://dev.nrocnetwork.org' ); define( 'WP_SITEURL', 'https://dev.nrocnetwork.org' );I think there must be some core configuration error here, maybe something wrong in the database. I actually have a vague memory of this issue occurring during the setup of our site, but I apparently “fixed” it. This all makes me suspect that the issue was there all along, but masked by something — perhaps the domain mapping plugin.
To that end, I tried reinstating the plugin. It did not fix the issue. But ultimately I want to fix whatever is at the root of this, not mask it with a plugin again.
I will be grateful for any assistance! Thank you.
The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]
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Thanks for all the help — and fast! Ok, here are some answers and questions before I go test some of the suggestions.
sunrise.php
I already tried backing out/deleting/renaming everything related to the mapping plugin and sunrise, but it didn’t fix the problem.
run the multisite from webroot instead of a subdirectory
I’m curious what you see that causes you to think that. It is running in webroot (which for me is /var/www/html) but it could be a clue if you’re seeing something suspicious….or if I’m doing something I don’t know I’m doing! (fwiw I have wp-config one level up, for security, in /var/www)
Do make sure the addon domains are pointing at the proper subdirectory off the webroot directory for the install.
Does that still apply if I’ve already got the mu running in webroot? If so, please elaborate because I’m not sure where I should point the domain.
I tried to see the headers (Set-Cookie create cookie) of /nroc/wp-login.php many are enabled for the root directory and this behavior is not the wordpress default.
The plugin may have created the mapping badly.
https://websniffer.cc/?url=https://dev.nrocnetwork.org/nroc/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fdev.nrocnetwork.org%2Fnroc%2Fwp-admin%2F&reauth=1This MIGHT be due to the fact that we don’t normally use the standard wp-login for anyone, for security reasons. We redirect in .htaccess to a page called /log-in
So it IS possible that this is messing with the login for me as superadmin. But it works fine on the live site under normal conditions (or it did, until 10 days ago). I am really less concerned with the login issue (I included it just in case they are related) and more concerned with the mapping of the domain in admin. The fact that I cannot reach the dashboard of a mapped domain site is an untenable situation.
If you install a multisite based on subdirectories (percoso) as the host is the same for the primary site and secondary site you should not have cookie problems.
That’s what I thought, too. It has been fine for years, then suddenly – boom!
Use only the unknown mode of chrome.
I have tested with “incognito mode” in Chrome, but the login problem persists. Only since the crash of -10 days. It was fine before that.
Wildcard for subdomain.domain1.com not for domain1.com
UCC with SAN only allowed fully qualified domain names (FQDN)I am not sure how this will help or how it’s related, but I may not be understanding what you mean.
the dev domain does not exist in the ssl certificate
This only interferes with security, yes? That is…google screams about it not being secure (it’s only dev, so I don’t care), but that should not be related to the problem I am having? That has been my assumption so far.
please can you show your htaccess?
Yes, see below.
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Thanks for the advice. I will review the rest of the tips provided and see what I can learn or be inspired by!
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This is my CURRENT .htaccess file (or at least, the relevant parts. There are also a lot of modrewrites that are not really part of this issue).
# BEGIN HTTPS Redirection Plugin <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] </IfModule> # END HTTPS Redirection Plugin # BEGIN WordPress <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L] # add a trailing slash to /wp-admin RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ $1wp-admin/ [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d RewriteRule ^ - [L] RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $2 [L] RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ $2 [L] RewriteRule . index.php [L] </IfModule> # END WordPressI have REMOVED the following, which I thought might be causing trouble. These sections have been in use on the live site for ages, and whenever we copy the server to use as a dev site, I do not touch these and they do not interfere. But also, normally when I use a copy of the site for testing, I am bypassing domain mapping, so it doesn’t matter.
But removing these did not fix the issues I was having.
# Stop spam attack logins and comments <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .*/(wp-comments-post|wp-login)\.php.* [OR] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)?wp-admin$ [OR] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)?log-in(.*)$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*nrocnetwork.org.* [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$ #RewriteRule (.*) https://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ - [F] #RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://nrocnetwork.org/misc/block.html [R=301,L] # Wordfence WAF <IfModule mod_php7.c> php_value auto_prepend_file '/var/www/html/wordfence-waf.php' </IfModule> <Files ".user.ini"> <IfModule mod_authz_core.c> Require all denied </IfModule> <IfModule !mod_authz_core.c> Order deny,allow Deny from all </IfModule> </Files> # END Wordfence WAFOk, I read up on all the suggestions and they all seem to relate to either the fact that I do not have https set up, or the idea that my entire mu is in a subdirectory rather than in the webroot. Neither of those is the problem here, unless I’m totally missing the point. Any other ideas? Or correct my understanding?
Thanks @autotutorial
I think there is some confusion here, because I am not trying to map a domain to /wp-admin/ or map a domain to the primary site or vice versa. I’m just trying to do very STANDARD domain mapping to one of the sub-sites in my network. It should be super simple (and it DOES work on the frontend) but something is affecting how the wp-admin links work. I posted a video below, hopefully that will help.
I did as you suggested and reviewed every one of those in the database. I have not made any changes. You can see screenshots here and leave comments by selecting text or screenshots, if you wish:
I also made a screencast showing what I am trying to describe, because I think that the situation is too confusing for words alone.
Important: the primary domain is dev.nrocnetwork.org (dev.nroc.org is the mapped domain) I have not mapped anything to /wp-admin/
Observations about the database entries:
– some of them are http, some are https – could that be a problem?
– in wp_blogs, both the primary and mapped domain have the path / but the others all have /xxxxx as the path – that might be how it should be, not sure.I have followed all instructions at https://www.ads-software.com/support/article/wordpress-multisite-domain-mapping/
There is nothing mapped to “folders” in my site. I added a screenshot to the doc above (bitly link) showing what my folder structure looks like.
Thanks for all the efforts to help me out!!! ??
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