Chances are if you’ve found this post, you’ve been googling around to see if it’s possible to run a WordPress multisite installation on the Rackspace Cloud Sites. Obviously if it’s a sub-folder install you can as there is nothing tricky to that. (this is where you’re sites run in a folder like domain.com/site1/)
Where it can be harder is when you want to have users with fully qualified domain names each pointing to their own site, within your multisite install.
In short: Yes it can be done.
Primarily I’m posting this to dispel a lot of what I’ve read on many forums saying that it can’t be done. The trick to doing it us WPMU’s domain mapping plugin.
A bit of background. Usually you need an environment where the main hostname is glued to a dedicated IP address. The test suggested in most places is visiting the IP address (e.g. http://123.123.123.123) by itself and you should get to the main site. What this is demonstrating is that Apache is configured correctly to support multisite.
You won’t get this kind of setup to work on Rackspace cloud sites due to the fancy way they have their environment setup, even if you order a dedicated IP address.
The trick is to firstly configure WordPress for a sub-folder install. Test that and confirm that it’s working.
Then use the WPMU domain mapping plugin (located here), walk through the setup of that plugin.
Final piece of the puzzle is to create each site, then in the Rackspace Cloud administration you have to set up the domain name that you are mapping as an alias of the main domain name. Sure the catch here is that you have to have the DNS pointing to their DNS servers but if you can live with that, it works.
It looks like this in the control panel when you’re done. (click to view larger)
Good luck! Post a question here if you have one, I’ll help out if I can.
I have been working with RackSpace CloudSites since back when it was Mosso… and I have yet to get a MultiSite install to work correctly, or at least easily… so I host my multisites elsewhere. Support is no help. Can you possibly create a video tutorial of how you configured everything from a clean install?
Romy, where do you host? I can’t get it working on rackspace either.
Thanks!!
Robert, did you try it with the WPMU plugin to map the domains, really that is the trick…
Hello Romy,
I don’t have time right now to make a video of the process. Happy to answer a couple of questions though if you have specific problems?
Just drop another comment here if you like…
PS
Hey Peter, thanks for a great, informative post. Got it working. I have a question as to how you set up email and FTP access for an aliased site? None of the regular site settings are available after a site becomes an alias.
Thomas, well there is a bit of a catch. Rackspace supports the alias but you can’t do much else with it.
So I usually place the DNS elsewhere, you can use the new rackspace DNS service (beta) to host and manage DNS.
Generally with email I configure on google apps.
PS
I found I can manage the MX records through my domain registrar, so I’ll be testing that next. I think as far as FTP is concerned, I only have one client who has requested the ability to share files with people using his FTP. I can transition him to using dropbox instead. Thanks, again!
Cheers, for this, I found that I don’t need to set the Server IP address as suggested on the WPMU domain mapping plugin installation instructions, did you find the same?
Andy, you may be right – I’ve not done it like that, I’ve always worked out the IP of the multisite install and have configured the WPMU plugin with that.
Thinking about I can see that what you’re saying may well be the case as the Rackspace setup is going to point the domains to that install anyway…
Anyway sounds like you’ve got it working!
PS
Hi,
I am following your blog on how to setup multisite on rackspace cloud sites, i have got the wordpress site working on subdirectory option and also got WPMU domain mapping to work, but i can’t figure out how to get a subdomain to point to the subdirectory on which i have my newly created wordpress sites.
For example :
I have my main domain at : http://www.crist.us
Now i need to have another wordpress site at ” test.crist.us ” which as per your guide is setup in a subdirectory, so it is located at http://crist.us/test .
Now in WPMU Domain mapping i have set the custom domain to http://test.crist.us to point to http://crist.us/test/
And i have created an entry in Rackspace cloud site as test.crist.us pointing to the same IP address they have assigned for http://www.crist.us
I have also tried by creating an aliased site
the main site added : test.crist.us and pointed to http://www.crist.us
Still it doesn’t work, all i get is “Please come back later.”
Please see if you can shed some light on this issue of mine, and really appreciate for blogging this article in the first place.
I think the section where you say
“And i have created an entry in Rackspace cloud site as test.crist.us pointing to the same IP address they have assigned for http://www.crist.us”
may lead to an answer.
When you’ve done this in cloud site admin, did you choose the option to forward the new hostname to the old? Make sure you choose the forwarding option, don’t set it up as a hosting account where you can edit the IP addresses etc..
Does that make sense?
Peter
Well what i have done in the cloud admin is :
1. Clicked on Add a Site
2. Added “test.crist.us” as the domain
3. Choose the option to “point it to another website (alias )”
4. Selected “www.crist.us” from the website list to point to.
I can also see an entry for “test.crist.us” under my http://www.crist.us domain record’s section which has the IP address as the same as http://www.crist.us , and the IP address is editable. Now i wonder how do i do this forwarding option from the new hostname to the old it is different from what i have done?
Thank you for your reply Peter.
WOW PETER!!!! ITS WORKING….
i think i just had to wait until my browser or iso cache got refreshed…wow its working
Thank you so much for this valuable post.
Cool!
Once you’ve done it once it’s easy!
I’ve installed multisite about a dozen times on rackspace now…
Hi Peter,
Thank you so much for guiding all the readers.
Please see what I have been trying to do: (we are hosting on rackspace cloud sites)
First I installed wp multisite with sub-domain option and everything seemed to go well until I click on dashboard of the newly set site. and it did not work any way. I even did wildcard setup for sub-domain in my dns setup.
Anyway after searching I found your blog and redone all the stuff again with a sub-directory setup. Its working well till domain mapping stage. you can see the main site: http://ixa.co.in/ and the another site : http://ixa.co.in/ixaweb/
Now I have a domain http://ixaweb.com/ and want this to point to http://ixa.co.in/ixaweb/
for this I have setup the domain http://ixaweb.com/ in the same user http://ixa.co.in/
Note also that we are using our own dns and pointed our domains to the IPs that have been assigned in Rackspace cloud on setup of domains. ( when you say…..Sure the catch here is that you have to have the DNS pointing to their DNS servers but if you can live with that, it works….does that mean we need to use rackspace dns altogether?
One more thing we are using wp 3.3.1 which has a different interface on dashboard>settings>domains:
Its asks for
Site ID ???
Domain ???
Primary (check box)
I could not find any site ID even in the list of sites or in its edit form.
When I fill site ID with site name (http://ixa.co.in/ixaweb/) and the domain name (http://ixaweb.com/) and tick mark the check box, it simply does not do anything accept refreshing the page without any error/saved msg.
Please help me do this setup. Thanks in advance!!!
Ashish
Ashish,
You did not mention the WPMU plugin, have you got that installed?
Also perhaps you’ve done this but it’s not obvious from your question.. You need to setup the domains that are going to point the multisite as forwarding domains on the rackspace control panel – have you done that?
Peter
Hi Peter,
Your setup Seems to match what I’ve used when setting up my multisites on rackspance cloud sites, but I’m using the free wordpress domain mapping plugin with no success. Can you buy just the WPMU plugin or do you have to join one of their monthly plans? If the solution is as easy as a different plugin that would be fantastic.
You pretty much have to join their monthly plan, but you can join for just one month – you wouldn’t get updates though…
Feeling great to have your reply so quickly. Thanks, Peter!
Yes I have installed “WordPress MU Domain Mapping” plugin.
I have setup domain in Rackspace CP in this case its (http://ixaweb.com) that I want to point to http://ixa.co.in/ixaweb/
I cannot figure it out what else to be done?
Regards
Ashish
Hi, I’ve recently set up a WordPress network on Rackspace using subdomains rather than subfolders. I used exactly the method described here, with one straightforward addition: you need to add any other domains as aliases too. So, if the main domain of your site was site.com you can use an alias to set up sub.site.com no problem. If you then wanted to use the domain http://www.subsite.com you set up http://www.subsite.com as an alias of site.com. Voila!
Hi Tom,
Thanks for that, I’ve not done it that way but I’m sure readers of this will be interested in that…
The easiest way to accomplish this would be to get Rackspace to support wildcard DNS records on Cloud Sites. Vote here: http://feedback.rackspace.com/forums/71021-product-feedback/suggestions/3377973-wildcard-dns-records, to have them add that support.
Agreed – Voting now!
Question:
If I want to set up a system to host client sub-domains and if they control the DNS, can I use cname records in their DNS? The advantage of this is that I don’t need to get everybody to change their DNS records if I ever migrate the application away from Rackspace Cloud Sites. I would then only need to change one DNS record, even if I had hundreds or thousands of client websites.
For example:
1. Set up app.mycompany.com and app.myclient.com as aliases in Rackspace sites manager.
2. Get the client to set up a cname record in their DNS that points app.myclient.com at generic.mycompany.com.
Assuming that the mycompany.com domain is managed by Rackspace and configured correctly, people should now be able to access http://app.myclient.com and it will point to my application.
Will this work?
In short, I think yes it could work like that.
The WordPress multisite would have to be configured to be app.mycompany.com though…
But it should work.
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