Multisites

In addition to WordPress single site installations the VIP Platform supports WordPress multisite (also known as WordPress networks). A WordPress multisite allows multiple WordPress sites to be run from the same WordPress installation, using the same set of user accounts. One common use case for a WordPress multisite is to support multiple languages, using the Multilingual Press plugin from Inpsyde, one of VIP’s Featured Partner Agencies.

Reasons to use a multisite include:

• Themes and plugins need to be updated only once for the entire network, instead of once per site.
• Editors and administrators who have access to multiple sites can easily navigate between them.
• Administrators can create new subsites quickly and easily.

Reasons not to use a multisite may include:

• having different development teams per site who should not share access to the same repo.

Specifics of how WordPress multisites work are available in the WordPress Codex article on WordPress Networks, but some key features are:

• A multisite can use any combination of domains, subdomains, and subdirectories.
• All subsites share the same database.
• While the users table is shared, users can have unique roles (or none at all) on a per-subsite basis.
• Subsites all deploy from the same repo and the same branch.
• Plugins and themes can be made available on a per-subsite basis.
• Several tables are shared by the entire multisite:
  • wp_blogs
  • wp_blog_versions
  • wp_registration_log
  • wp_signups
  • wp_site
  • wp_sitemeta
  • wp_users
  • wp_usermeta
• In addition, each subsite has its own set of the following tables that, after the first subsite, are prefixed by site ID (e.g. wp_ for tables for site ID 1; wp_2_ for tables for site ID 2; et al):
  • wp_commentmeta
  • wp_comments
  • wp_links
  • wp_options
  • wp_postmeta
  • wp_posts
  • wp_term_relationships
  • wp_term_taxonomy
  • wp_terms

For assistance with converting an existing WordPress single site to a WordPress multisite, contact VIP support.

Plugin access

While plugins are installed via GitHub and are activated at the network level, by default, subsite administrators cannot enable or disable plugins. A network administrator can make this functionality available by checking the appropriate box at the bottom of /wp-admin/network/settings.php.