Best Friend || Worst Enemy: WordPress Multisite

@Taylor4484 #multisite #WCTO
Best Friend ||
Worst Enemy
Multisite Network
Do’s & Don’ts
presented by Taylor McCaslin
at WordCamp Toronto
on October 3, 2015

@Taylor4484
#multisite
(follow me for the link to these slides
& tweet your photos!)

Technical Product Manager
UX Designer
Interaction Designer
BA, Theatre & Dance
Certificates in Business, Computer Science,
Digital Art & Media
Taylor McCaslin

Disclaimer
● My advice is based on my experience with what has
worked for me in the past
● Every project is unique
● There is an exception to every rule I makeup
● Plugins will do everything I say multisite won’t or shouldn’t

What people are saying
● “I tried to use multisite to manage multiple sites and
just got myself confused”
● “Multisite is amazing, why would anyone not use it?”
● “Multisite is hard”
● “We had a project that was running multisite and we
converted it to a standard wordpress install”
● “I don’t use anything but multisite”

How it’s being used
“Multisite is now a utility for managing multiple sites using
one installation, where as the original vision was to enable
blogging networks“
@jjj on make.wordpress.org/core

●
○
Best Friend || Worst Enemy

What is Multisite?
● A multisite network is a collection of site that all share the
same single WordPress installation
● Terminology
○ Install: an instance or installation of WordPress
○ Network: a set of subsites that operate within the single WordPress
install configured for multisite
○ Site: one of the subsites in the multisite network

What ISN’T Multisite?
● A network of sites that can be moved to separate hosts
○ 1 host. 1 install of WordPress. Many sites.
● A set of sites that can easily be separated into their own
WordPress installs
○ trust me, modifying serialized data is not fun
● A set of sites that can have different IP addresses
○ see the first point

A big happy multisite apartment
Multisite networks are like apartment complexes.
● Shared roof (hosting)
● Common spaces (filesystem)
● Private apartments (sites)
Be a good neighbor
Don’t trust strangers!
Always Lock your apartment door

The Network Admin /wp-admin/network

Open or Closed Site?
● Terminology is hard…. and confusing
Public Network / Untrusted
● Anyone can signup and create a site
(sometimes paid)
○ WordPress.com
○ Happytables.com
○ University Student Blogs
● Concerns:
○ file types / uploads
○ scripts / embeds
○ copyright / DMCA
Private Network / Trusted
● Limited site and user creation
○ Wordcamp.org
○ Company intranets
○ University network
■ colleges ,department, etc
● Concerns:
○ too many cooks
○ or none at all
○ code changes affect all sites!

Subfolders, Subdomains, & Domain Mapping
● 1 primary network domain
○ sub-domain (I prefer this one)
■ mysite.com
■ site2.mysite.com
■ site3.mysite.com
○ sub-folder
■ mysite.com/site1
● Domain Mapping
○ Github.com/humanmade/Mercator
■ sunrise.php
○ Premium plugins exist for selling domains to users (wpmudev.org)

ALWAYS use CNAMES

Unified Site Management
● Super Admin Role
● manage_network
● manage_sites
● manage_network_users
● manage_network_plugins
● manage_network_themes
● manage_network_options
● unfiltered_html
codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities

Shared Users
● All blogs have central user management
● Users login once to access all sites on the network
○ Doesn’t play well with 2FA plugins
■ You’ll login for every site
■ Duo2, Google Auth, Two Factor Auth, etc

Shared Users
● Caution: User profiles are the same for all sites

Individual Multisite Author

Shared Themes
● Add a theme
○ Network Enable (all sites)
○ Restrict themes available to use
per site
■ Done through the Site -> Edit Site
menu in network admin
● Changes to one theme
WILL affect all sites using it

Child Themes on Multisite
https://wordpress.org/plugins/one-click-child-theme/

Shared Plugins
● Install plugins on the network (for your site admins)
○ Activate per site (wp-admin)
○ Network Activate (network admin)
● Must Use Plugins
○ Can’t be deactivated through the admin

Settings in two places...

File Structure Differences
❏ wp-config.php has extra lines
❏ .htaccess has extra lines
❏ wp-content/sunrise.php if you are using domain mapping
❏ wp-content has extra subfolders

File Structure Differences
Pro tip: rely on host to
allow you to grant
your site admins
access to only specific
site directories

DB Structure Differences
Normal WordPress
(10)
wp_options
wp_posts
wp_postmeta
wp_comments
wp_commentmeta
wp_terms
wp_term_taxonomy
wp_term_relationships
wp_users*
wp_usermeta*
Multisite Specific
(10 + 6)
wp_blogs
wp_blog_versions
wp_registration_log
wp_signups
wp_site
wp_sitemeta
PER Multisite
(10 + 6 + (N * 8))
wp_2_options
wp_2_posts
wp_2_postmeta
wp_2_comments
wp_2_commentmeta
wp_2_terms
wp_2_term_taxonomy
wp_2_term_relationships

Tables in ONE multisite DB
(10 + 6 + (N * 8)) where n is number of sites
1 site = 24 tables
10 sites = 96 tables
100 sites = 816 tables
1,000 sites = 8,016 tables
10,000 sites = 80,016 tables
95,000,000 sites = 296,000,016 tables WordPress.com, July 2015

Choosing the right Hosting
● Use a managed host
● Pro-Tips:
○ automatic backups with 1 click restore (ability to download backup)
○ built in staging sites (that magically with the networked sites)
○ granular deploy to production controls (deploy only specific tables)
○ look for extra security features (like automatic ip blacklisting)
○ know limitations (some hosts don’t allow subdomains or subfolders)
○ use version control
● MMSN (massive multisite network)
○ plan to spend $$$$ or hire a sysadmin

Pro Dev Do’s
● define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);
○ disable the Admin File Editor
● define( 'DO_NOT_UPGRADE_GLOBAL_TABLES', true );
○ For large sites: prevents dbDelta() and the upgrade functions from
doing expensive queries against global tables

Multisite Plugin Developer Do’s
● Consider your Network and WP-Admin settings
○ Split out these settings if needed
● Cleanup site options on delete
○ delete_site_option( $option_name );
○ can be expensive
● Cleanup custom site tables on delete
● Consider how licensing will work for Networks

Pro Dev Do’s
● add_action( ‘network_admin_menu’, ‘my-settings’ );
○ add extra submenus and menu options to the network admin panel'

Multisite Theme Developers Do’s
● Create Child Themes for your Themes
● Consider how licensing will work for Networks

Pro Dev Dont’s
● current_user_can(‘unfiltered_html’)
○ “Allows user to post HTML markup or even JavaScript code in pages,
posts, comments and widgets.”
○ Just don’t. You will regret this.
● loop through your network sites
○ Unless you know what you’re doing, you’ll cripple your site
performance, if not crashing your site altogether.

Multisite
Use Cases

To multisite or not?
“I want to allow users to create their own sites within a
network with some constraints”

“I want to allow users to create their own sites within a
network with some constraints”
● Use Multisite!
○ This is what multisite was made to do, and it does it well!
● Pro-Tip: customize the admin!
○ WordPress.com
○ Happytables.com

Happy Tables Custom WP Admin

“I want to centrally manage all my client’s sites”

“I want to centrally manage all my client’s sites”
● Don’t use Multisite
● Alternatives:
○ Jetpack Site Management (update plugins across your site)
○ WP Remote (free, hosted)
○ Manage WP (premium, hosted)
○ Infinite WP (free, self-hosted with paid addons)
○ WP-CLI (script your way to site nirvana)

“I want to have a multisite network where each site is in a
different language”

“I want to have a multisite network where each site is in a
different language”
● Maybe Multisite, Maybe Not
● SEO optimization can be difficult when similar content
is across a network of sites
○ Pro-tip: hreflang tags and canonical links are your friend
● Plugins like WPML are built specifically to do this

“I have a lot of content that is very different, and I want all
my sites to look different, but it’s still all my content”

“I have a lot of content that is very different, and I want all
my sites to look different, but it’s still all my stuff”
● Most likely not Multisite, but maybe
● Map domains to categories and tags
● Create custom templates for custom posts types, and
category archives

Best Friend || Worst Enemy: WordPress Multisite

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