Howto: Domain Mapping without a Plugin – Instructions

  • yes, it works natively without instructions, and here is what you need to know to make it work:

    recent versions (as of WP 4.x) of WordPress Multisite (fresh installs) have the ability to map your custom domain (e.g. example.com) onto a subsite of your install without the help of a plugin. This should be possible with subdomains and subdirectory type sites ( I have accomplished this with subdomain and not tried with subdirectory myself, so someone may want to confirm this actually works.)

    But it somehow remained a “hidden feature” – i.e. there is no proper UI – and there is a definite lack of comprehensive information on the web. Hence I am typing this short guide on how to get this accomplished.

    What you don’t need: – a plugin or sunrise.php

    What you need: – you need a dedicated IP Address for your multisite install (ask your hosting provider to set it up for you, if you are on shared hosting). You can add other sites and installations in your account if you want, but you can have only one multisite install per IP!

    The guide is given assuming you have CPANEL access. I keep this short and to the point as I don’t have time for an elaborate explanation. sorry.

    Here we go:

    Step 1: Create a Multisite install – obviously (instructions are abundantly available on the net, hence I refrain from explaining this step).

    Step 2: if you want to use subdomains, create a wildcard subdomain (just create a subdomain with an asterisk ‘*’ (no quotation marks) as subdomain name in your CPANEL.

    Step 3: create a subsite that you wish to map your custom domain on.

    Step 4: Login as network admin and go to My Sites > Network Admin > Sites and choose ‘edit’ for the subsite you have just created.

    Step 5: in the info Tab enter the new custom domain (e.g. example.com) in the Site Address (URL) field. Don’t use the www, but insert the domain as https://example.com and click “save changes”.

    Step 6: in your registrar’s DNS settings you have to create an ‘A’ record pointing to the IP adress of your multisite install. (You can create one for ‘example.com’ and one for ‘*.example.com’ so the https://www.example.com will be taken care of).

    Step 7: this last step is important. While the domain will now resolve to your subsite, you need to add one line of code to your wp-config.php to correct an issue with cookies. As cookies are currently set for subsite.maindomain.com, you won’t be able to even login from example.com. Add the following line of code to wp-config.php after all the multisite parts to have your site hand out cookies for example.com:

    define( ‘COOKIE_DOMAIN’, $_SERVER[ ‘HTTP_HOST’ ] );

    That’s all – you have just created a subsite with your own custom domain!

    https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/

Viewing 15 replies - 16 through 30 (of 58 total)

  • Thanks McPace,

    My other two sites do not require SSL so I doubt that is my problem. I have not configured anything in IIS yet on the Windows side either so I am looking into that. Keep your fingers crossed.

    I fixed the problem of the site not showing in the control panel by adding the Administrator to the new site. However, it still gives me the cookies issue. I think this is related to the login redirect address I am getting, which is different from the subdomain sites.

    When I try to force login to the same link as the subdomain sites, it says the page is not there.

    1. mysite.com/wp-admin
    2. subdomain.mysite.com/wp-admin

    3. newsite.com/https://echn-usa-iah.org/wp-login.php?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fechn-usa-iah.org%2Fwp-admin%2F&reauth=1

    The third login does not work.

    Any ideas where this pesky problem originates from?

    Good morning ..

    Question ene static ip per WP Mulisite
    If I have one Multisite installation and other WP single site installs will that work?

    If I want to do more than one Multisite install would I need to request another static IP? Will hostgator let me do that or would I need a totally separate hosting account?

    Any workarounds to the static ip restriction?

    thanks
    Ricardo

    Hi!

    I habve struggled with my own multisite network this weekend, I did as in the toppost right now and it seems to work. (Before I followed the plugins installation guide and the mapping between subsites and domainame did not get saved at my-domain/wp-admin/network/settings.php?page=dm_domains_admin)

    I cannot however log into Admin at new domainname. I have set this in wp_confg:
    define( ‘COOKIE_DOMAIN’, $_SERVER[ ‘HTTP_HOST’ ] );

    What can it be?

    I changed this in wp_config and it seemt to work

    define(‘SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL’, true);
    to this
    define(‘SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL’, false);

    Found it at WP login trouble checklist at www.ads-software.com

    @bettinaba, glad you got it working. I’m wondering if you also have subdomain sites in addition to the unique domain too and, if so, is it still working?

    Thanks!
    Rachel

    For the moment I have one multisite with three subsites. All where defines as subsites at multisite setup.

    I chamged the adress of one yesterday to the domain adress it should have. With the code above I can still access all sites. (I lodt it to the site that got the new domainame)

    If it have any other i implication I really do not know. Anyone who knows – please tell me :kr

    @bettinaba

    I currently have two websites on the same subdomain and I created one unique domain so I don’t think changing the subdomain setting to false will work because my other sites wont work.For example, these are my three sites in the order I created them:

    Setup Multisite, Subdomain = TRUE:
    1. subdomain.com
    2. site2.subdomain.com

    Added site per directions above and still getting cookies error:
    3. newsite.com

    My concern for you is the other sites on the subdomain may not work if you choose to use them. Does this make sense?

    I am still having this issue. My install was updated from an older version. Anyone have advice?

    Thanks!!

    One more thing – I am not using CPANEL. I am on a Windows 2008 Server and already have a subdomain multisite network setup so I actually started with step 4. Am I missing anything?

    @wanderingonion _ I have absoluetly no idea. I am a WordPress newbie. I sat all weekend banging my head to my laptop screen getting nowhere with old and new instructions I found about the MU domain mapping plugin. Then I looked at the problem the other way – as a general WP problem which it isnt but it happens to help.

    I wrote here since it might help someone. I alsp wrote here since there might be other consequences I cannot figure out now or havent found yet. I hope someone will tell me if so.

    I hope someone else cann help you with your problem @wanderingonion ??

    No it wasn’t a good solution. I have lost access to the root of my Multisite network. Tomorrow I will reset to:

    define(‘SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL’, true);

    and install a plugin, then go back to define(‘SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL’, false); since I then can log into my subsites.

    I wish someone knowing these things could help.
    Anyone?

    @bettinaba – I got mine working with your help. Here is what I did:

    1. I already configured a subdomain environment with two websites and subdomain was = true in the wp_config file.

    2. I changed subdomain = false and created a new site. WordPress defaulted to the subdirectory mode so my site initially looked like mainsite.com/newsite. Just save it that way.

    3. Then I followed the steps in the instructions above starting at step 4.

    4. Then I added the Administrator as a user on my new site.

    It showed up in the dashboard and I was able to login to the wp-admin page and manage it along with my other websites.

    I am working in a Windows Server 2008 R2 environment so I had to create a Forwarding Zone with the name of my new site and an A record in the DNS settings. This is probably unrelated to your problem but I wanted to note.

    Also, I have sunrise and the cookie domain code defined as follows on in my wp-config.php file:

    define('SUNRISE', 'on');

    define( ‘COOKIE_DOMAIN’, $_SERVER[ ‘HTTP_HOST’ ] );

    I hope this helps. Let me know.

    rleon

    (@rleon)

    Hi everyone .. this worked ok

    I added
    define( ‘COOKIE_DOMAIN’, $_SERVER[ ‘HTTP_HOST’ ] );

    to the config but I still get the error
    ERROR: Cookies are blocked or not supported by your browser. You must enable cookies to use WordPress.

    Also with this config can I move wordpress to its own directory , like a standalone site?

    wanderingonion

    (@wanderingonion)

    @rleon

    Check the steps above that helped me get it working. Did you do all of them?

    rleon

    (@rleon)

    @wandering

    I took out

    
define( ‘COOKIE_DOMAIN’, $_SERVER[ ‘HTTP_HOST’ ] );

    and added

    
define('COOKIE_DOMAIN', '');
Viewing 15 replies - 16 through 30 (of 58 total)
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