WordPress MultiSiteManager Documentation

MultiSiteManager (MSM) is a WordPress plugin which will perform two of the most important tasks of an administrator: backups and upgrades. MSM can manage any number of WordPress installations from one “master” WP installation. To manage a WordPress website with MSM, you need FTP access to the site.

Please read this page carefully to the end! Not doing so can result in malfunction as well as data loss and/or damage!

Contents

Installation

Download

Have problems unpacking archives? Try the latest 7zip.

Please donate, using the form on the upper right of this page! You will support our efforts and receive a backlink!

First, pick one master installation for MSM. This site will have the MSM panels where you can manage your backups and upgrades for other sites. The master should be on a server with much space for the backups, a good network connection and enough power and memory for the complex tasks of making backups and upgrading. Important: Safe Mode on the master must be deactivated, external file access must be allowed. MSM will not work if these requirements are not met.

To make MSM ready for work on the master, you must do the following:

  • Upload the plugin directory msm to the master’s plugin directory (wp-content/plugins).
  • Make the directory msm/work writable by the webserver.
  • Inside the master’s wp-content directory, create a new directory msm_backups and make it writable by the webserver.
  • Activate the plugin in the master’s admin panel.

The plugin is now basically ready to work. You will still need to set up sites to manage, but this is explained below.

Usage

Configure sites

Add a site

  • Go to the page MultiSiteManager -> Sites. Click Add a site »
  • Fill in the form. Explainations are shown if you hover the question marks beneath the form with the mouse.
  • Click Test and Save. If there are any errors, please correct them and test/save again. Unless all settings for this site are correct, you will not be able to use it.
  • Repeat these steps for all sites you want to manage. Of course, you can add new sites any time later, too.

Manage sites

On the page MultiSiteManager -> Sites, you see a table with your pages.

You can choose to edit an entry, which will lead you to a screen similar to the “Add a site” screen. You are able to edit the site’s settings here. After each modification, the site settings are tested again. Note that the site settings are only tested when you add/change a site. This means that if e.g. you change your FTP password, MSM will still treat the configuration as correct, until you change and save the configuration. (Of course, the configuration is tested before any actual backups/upgrades.)

You can also choose to delete an entry. Deleting an entry will only remove the site details, not the backups for this site.

Backups and Upgrades

To run backups and upgrades, go to MultiSiteManager in the main WordPress menu. You will see a table with all your sites.

To run backups and upgrades, go to MultiSiteManager in the main WordPress menu. You will see a table with all your sites.

MultiSiteManager MultiSiteManager backups
(Click to enlarge)

The first column shows the site URL, the current WP version of the site, and whether the configuration is ok or not. In the second column, you must enter the FTP password for every site on which you want to perform a backup and/or upgrade. In the third column, you can define which type of backup you want: files, backups, both or none (see “What is backuped?” for more). In the fourth column, you can configure the upgrade for the respective site: No upgrade at all, upgrade to the latest available version, or upgrade to any other version from the WP release archive (enter the version number into the little input field).

As soon you have entered the FTP passwords and choosen the backups/upgrades settings, you can hit the Run button. The actions will then start. Note: The backups and upgrades can take from some seconds up to 20 minutes and more, depending from things like: to server and network performance, number of sites selected, amount of data to backup, and many more. Do never under, no circumstances, abort the backup/upgrades process. You will most likely end up with data lost and or damaged!

What is included in the backups?

Note that files will backup all files and directories which usually belong to a WordPress installation, including wp-content. So if you have big uploads in the wp-content directory of that site, you should either expect very lenghty backups, or choose a different backup method than MSM. Also note that non-Wordpress files/directories found in the base directory are not saved! For example, if you have a directory images in your WordPress root directory, this will not be saved.

The database backup creates a backup of all tables within the WordPress database which have the table prefix defined in the wp-config.php of the respective site.

A word of warning

MultiSiteManager has been created with the greatest care. Anyway, there are so many different software configurations out there, so it might be that an upgrade or backup doesn’t work properly. As for backups, if you created a backup with MSM, you should at least once test a so-called restore: This means that you must take the backups created by MSM and install a new WP site from them, to confirm that the data is not corrupt. Because, if you don’t test the integrity of your backups before it’s too late, you might realize that all your backups are worth nothing at all.

(See also ”Known bugs„ below.)

Options

Not much at the moment, but you can set some options if you want to use a localized WordPress. Go to MultiSiteManager -> Options, each option is described.

Other things

Known bugs

Unfortunately, some testers have reported that the files backup doesn’t work for them, i.e. the files backup procedure fails at a certain point. (This will also cause an eventual database backup as well as an eventually choosen upgrade to fail – for the sake of safety.) The workaround for this problem is to omit the files backup (only for the site in question), and only perform a database backup and/or upgrade. If unsure, you can give it a try with the files backup, in the worst case it will simply fail, and you can try without it on the next run. I hope I can resolve this annoying problem in future releases.

Translations

Germanincluded

Translators for other languages are invited to send me language files. In your own interest, please ask me before, if a certain translation already exists (I’m a lazy uploader).

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use this plugin to upgrade a WordPress installed via Fantastico?
Yes, you can. But you will most likely not be able to use Fantastico for this install afterwards. (Note: This information is based on what users reported.)

Questions? Feedback? Found a bug?

Please leave a comment below.

Please support my efforts!

Developing this plugin took many, many hours of work! (Really! You don’t believe how much work it is to create decent software.) Please: honour this work with a little donation!

63 comments on “WordPress MultiSiteManager”

  1. Vladimir Prelovac on July 8, 2008 at 14:22 #

    Great plugin and good work!

    Now, remote plugin updates too? Like update all option in my Plugin Central.

    Cheers

  2. NSpeaks on July 10, 2008 at 12:30 #

    After adding the site and clicking test and save, it gave the error:

    Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class ftp_base in /home/navjot/public_html/nspeaks/wp-content/plugins/msm/lib/pemftp/ftp_class.php on line 11

    I am using WordPress 2.5.1 and the site I was adding also uses this version only.

  3. Kristin K. Wangen on July 15, 2008 at 12:21 #

    I really like the idea behind this plugin, but when I try to backup files it creates a backup directory in a backup directory in a backup directory and so on.
    And none of my themes and plugins are backed up.
    All directories are writeable.
    Upgrading worked okay.

  4. Alex Günsche on July 15, 2008 at 13:57 #

    NSpeaks: Thanks for the hint. I’ve decided to rename the FTP classes, as there seems to be some other, stupid plugin which loads the FTP classes on each page.

    Kristin: Strange, wp-content/ should be included in the backups. Could you tell me what OS and what FTP server you have (in case you know)?

  5. Kristin K. Wangen on July 15, 2008 at 18:35 #

    The blog I used for testing is hosted on DreamHost, – not sure if that helps a bit?

  6. chris carvache on July 16, 2008 at 20:18 #

    All this does is give me a blank screen hence some php error. Does this work if the FTP host REQUIRES a passive FTP connection to function correctly?

  7. Alex Günsche on July 16, 2008 at 21:56 #

    Kristin: Hm, unfortunately not. I don’t know what setup Dreamhost has. Any other Dreamhost users around? Maybe I should code a “debugger” toolkit to gather information that the user can send to me. :-|

    Chris: Usually, the plugin will use passive mode anyway. Do you get a specific error message?

  8. Ian on July 17, 2008 at 14:32 #

    Looks like a great plugin but I can’t get it to work. I installed it and setup my sites, but nothing happens when I try to do a backup and update.

    Also the admin screen that I see looks nothing like your screenshots… any ideas why?

    I’m running 0.1-beta3 and WordPress 2.6

  9. Ian on July 17, 2008 at 14:39 #

    I figured out the problem: It wasn’t loading the CSS and JS because of the $URL variable it was adding two slashes in the url. // instead of just one. Can this befixed for a future version?

  10. Alex Günsche on July 17, 2008 at 14:41 #

    Ian, thanks for the hint. I will fix this, although I’m astonished that a double slash causes a problem, because I would expect that any proper piece of software is able to translate this to a real path.

  11. jasonfg on July 20, 2008 at 12:03 #

    i like the idea behind this plugin, but i am worried about security of it.

    if i understand corrcetly i will end up with a directory that due to the required file permissions is visible to the whole world, containing both php files and database backups?

    then if someone were to find this directory they could easily find out all the information they would need to know to be able to hack all my wordpres sites, or at least access all the data from them. they could see for example the email addresses of every user registered on all my sites!

    if i am wrong, please tell me because i think it could be a very useful plugin that would save me lot of time!

  12. Dimitar Tsonev on July 20, 2008 at 22:44 #

    Strange, the lang directory is empty with no sample file.

  13. James on July 21, 2008 at 10:18 #

    Hi there,

    This looks fantastic – just what I have been looking for! However, I can’t get past “Remote file access appears to be disabled! We need to retrieve files from the outside, so please activate remote file access.”.

    I’ve done the following in my php.ini :

    safe_mode = off ;
    allow_url_fopen = on ;

    But it still errors as above. Any ideas? :o /

  14. Alex Günsche on July 21, 2008 at 17:46 #

    jasonfg: I understand your considerations. I admit that there’s a little trade-off between convenience and security. First: yes, theoretically, someone can download a backup file. But the backups are stored in a subdirectory with an alpha-numeric random name, and it’s virtually impossible to download one of the backup files. As for local users, the mentioned subdirectory has mode 0700, which means that only the webserver proccess can access it, no other user. This means of course that another user who can have the webserver execute scripts, can theoretically write a script to read your backups. However, the vast majority of webservers, especially those set up for shared hosting, forbid such a behaviour, usually by chrooting each user. I will however update the instructions to warn people to check their server and/or ask their provider about the setup.

    Dimitar: This is correct, there are no translations so far, as this is a beta. It is true that the instructions say that German is included, but this only refers to my development version. Sorry for the confusion.

    James: What do the respective lines in the phpinfo() output say? Are there differences between “Local value” and “Master value”? What PHP version on what OS are you running?

  15. James on July 21, 2008 at 18:07 #

    Hi Alex,

    Thanks for your reply. phpinfo() correctly shows safe_mode off and allow_url_fopen on, both local and master. I’m running PHP 4.4.8 on a hosted Linux (Redhat Enterprise) box.

    James

  16. James on July 21, 2008 at 18:13 #

    Additional info – I have switched that host to PHP 5.2.5 and get the same. Again, options are correct for both local and master.

    James

  17. Eugen on July 23, 2008 at 21:35 #

    OK, nice plugin, tried for several of my blogs. The upgrade process worked well, no worry here. Anyways that saved me a lot of time, and I can’t thank u enough. Oh, wait, I can! As soon as my Paypal account is full again I will do it.

    But I a problem. Even though the backup function works, I mean it creates the backups, I am not able to download them. Not even using a ftp client. The plugin changes the CHMOD to 700 and no acces is allowed. Any ideas what to do?

    I am using wordpress 2.6, PHP 5 and all others requirements are met.

  18. Ian on July 27, 2008 at 04:14 #

    I tried out the MSM on some sites, and it gave me an error that it couldn’t load the wp-config.php file from the site I was attempting to upgrade. Any idea what would cause this?

  19. Ron Smith on July 28, 2008 at 13:53 #

    Dumb newbie question:

    How do I turn “safe mode” off on the blog site?

    I have installed msm and am trying to add the first site. The error message I get is:

    Your site configuration is not ok.
    Error while writing a test file to wp-includes/.

    This looks like a terrific idea. Can’t wait to start testing it out.

    Thanks

  20. James on July 30, 2008 at 20:01 #

    Hi Alex,

    Are you still here?

    James

  21. Ron Smith on July 31, 2008 at 18:11 #

    Anybody here?

  22. Alex Günsche on August 7, 2008 at 23:31 #

    Hi everybody,

    sorry for the long waiting; I was on vacation.

    James: I’m afraid I cannot solve the problem. You can however try to deactivating the checks in the code (remove the call of msm_prepare() in admin_run.php), if you’re sure that everything should work. Please try first on a not so important install, and please let me know what you experienced.

    Eugen: You should not use an FTP client, but rather the web interface. In case you desperately need to access the backups tree via FTP, have a look at the file tools/chmod.php.

    Ian: a remote wp_config.php is only fetched on a backup, not upgrade. Why it failed, I don’t know. Is there anything special about that remote site?

    Ron: Safe mode is turned off by the admin. As for the failed write test, can it be that the respecitve directory is not writable with the provided FTP credentials?

  23. Roman on September 1, 2008 at 13:47 #

    Bloody awesome plugin, next Rethel-beers are on me ;-)

  24. Alex Günsche on September 2, 2008 at 23:29 #

    Glad you like it! And your offer is much apprechiated, I’ll keep it in mind. ;)

  25. ovidiu on September 10, 2008 at 12:15 #

    hi there.
    I just tried updateing one of my sites from wp 2.6 t owp 2.6.2 with the latest version of your plugin as of now.

    the site I was trying to update was the local site and it seemed to work out well until it got to this point:

    * 12:54:42 Starting database backup.
    * 12:54:42 Creating and deploying database backup scripts … error: Error while creating/deploying remote database backup scripts! Messages from called procedure:
    o 12:54:42 Retrieving remote wp-config.php … error: Could not retrieve remote wp-config.php!

    any hints?

  26. Palindrom on September 11, 2008 at 17:23 #

    Hi,
    I’ve got the same error “Cannot redeclare class ftp_base in…” as stated in comment #2. I’m also using 2.5.1 . Is there any fix yet?

  27. Vladimir on September 19, 2008 at 09:58 #

    If the target wordpress installation is localized (for example 2.5.1 DE) would the plugin recognize this and install appropriate upgrade?

  28. Lee Graham on December 15, 2008 at 14:55 #

    Hi
    this is a great plugin and there is a BIG market for this. I know of one script performing a similar tasks being sold for $1997 or $67/month.

    Rececently I purchased another script doing similar job for $97, but the remote upgrade does not work as well as your. So your script can do something it cannot and vice versa.

    I think your interface needs some more work to make it easier to use, especially if the user only want to upgrade a few blogs. Hopefully you can see the potential you have in front of you.

    Lee

  29. Ron on March 18, 2009 at 04:46 #

    Hi Alex,

    I’m finally getting back to testing your great plugin. Still having an issue with the wp-includes write:

    Your site configuration is not ok.
    Error while writing a test file to wp-includes/.

    I have changed all permissions and still get the same error? Using 2.71

    Very happy to support you if we can get this working – it would be a huge help to our charitable / community efforts.

    Best regards,

    ron

  30. Ron on March 28, 2009 at 03:48 #

    Hi Alex,

    I still get the same error regardless of which site I use for the test.

    Ideas would be appreciated as I can’t seem to get beyond this.

    Many thanks

  31. File Recovery Software on May 15, 2009 at 08:19 #

    FAT partition data restoration application retrieves files, folders from corrupted hard drives

  32. Recover Partition on June 8, 2009 at 07:02 #

    Windows billing and inventory management software manages stock as well as accounting details of company.

  33. photo rescue on June 18, 2009 at 07:59 #

    Outlook password restoration software rescues forgotten passwords, usernames, server name, port number or other incoming and outgoing information

  34. Computer monitoring on June 18, 2009 at 08:13 #

    Keylogger software contains property that it runs in hidden mode and not shown in any windows application like start menu, add-remove program, control panel. Utility tool traces all activity of user in computer system.

  35. freeware undelete on June 22, 2009 at 12:04 #

    Free undelete software provides backup solution for all lost file of all formats including TXT, RTF, PCX, MDB, PDF etc.

  36. restore iPod on June 26, 2009 at 10:28 #

    Supplier of iPod music recovery utility retrieves entire lost data even if iPod partition volume is not recognized by the system.

  37. ipod disk software on July 14, 2009 at 11:46 #

    Website provides iPod data recovery software to recover and restore all lost missing formatted music files and folders accidentally deleted from Apple iPod digital media player.

  38. barcode image processing software on August 27, 2009 at 09:44 #

    We provide barcode image creator software to develop different size and shape barcode label with different color.

  39. group sms on September 1, 2009 at 12:09 #

    Group text messaging software can easily create and send bulk messages in any language and it demands very less space for installation.

  40. recover Password on September 5, 2009 at 11:58 #

    MSN password protector software has easy and efficient functionality which helps to smoothly work with all the editions of MSN explorer

  41. purchase orders on September 7, 2009 at 13:12 #

    Specializes in offering online purchase order database management utility that helps you to produce printable reports like receipt report, purchase delivery report, purchase invoice report, vendor payment report etc.

  42. Mobile forensics on September 30, 2009 at 05:27 #

    Professional data retrieval software to manage balance sheets, item reports and employee details

  43. recover memory stick on September 30, 2009 at 08:59 #

    Data retrieval application is efficient utility to recover accidently or intentionally deleted music files.

  44. Convert Microsoft SQL to MySQL on September 30, 2009 at 12:50 #

    Developers of database migration software facilitate to support all database primary keys and default value constraints.

  45. software keylogger on October 1, 2009 at 07:14 #

    Hi there,

    I liked the functinality of plugin nice tool must say.
    thanks

  46. generate barcode on October 1, 2009 at 12:44 #

    Barcode image printing program helps you to provide security to your product with very less effort

  47. sms to mobile on October 5, 2009 at 12:32 #

    Prominent unlimited text SMS broadcasting software transfers bulk of SMS from Windows PDA, smart phone to other mobile phones.

  48. Capture keystrokes on October 6, 2009 at 06:10 #

    Website facilities remote keylogger application to save all keystrokes information into a secret and encrypted log file

  49. spy software on October 7, 2009 at 06:18 #

    Offering keylogger utility which runs in stealth mode and automatically records all keys that user pressed on laptop or desktop PC.

  50. keylogger on October 8, 2009 at 08:30 #

    Keylogger spy software is password protected program and best tool to monitor the users while you are away from your computer.

  51. keystroke capture freeware on October 26, 2009 at 05:07 #

    Professional website for keylogger tool observes entire key press activities by running in background. Maker of advanced keylogger software captures Windows screenshot at regular interval of time.

  52. laptop recovery on October 30, 2009 at 12:57 #

    Recover your lost hard disk office files and multimedia files from Windows vista OS running laptops.

  53. data on November 19, 2009 at 12:31 #

    I have update plugins problem :(

  54. unerase software on January 11, 2010 at 08:01 #

    drpu.net offers data recovery software which helps you to completely recover your deleted data without any loss in its originality.

  55. software documentation on January 30, 2010 at 07:23 #

    Offer software containing legend that can be customized for colors, symbols and used for creating dynamic graph paper.

  56. Download data recovery on February 6, 2010 at 09:59 #

    Professional data recovery tool supports recovery of deleted files folders even if emptied from the recycle bin folder or deleted using shift + delete keys.

  57. software reference on February 15, 2010 at 06:12 #

    Download professional PhotoMark maker to create, apply and manipulate photomarks rapidly and accurately.

  58. mobile forensics mobile forensics on February 23, 2010 at 10:10 #

    Mobile surveillance is a surveillance tool that captures deleted text messages and phone numbers with name.

  59. Barcode Label on February 24, 2010 at 06:33 #

    We offer Barcode management tool to create barcode labels for printing and scanning purposes.

  60. picture recovery on February 26, 2010 at 05:55 #

    Website deals with photo recovery software that has attractive graphical user interface and easily used by all types of users.

  61. barcode creator on March 9, 2010 at 11:25 #

    Company offers Barcode Label Creator software that allows option to copy and paste barcode images in various Windows applications

  62. lxg » Blog Archive » WordPress MultiSiteManager released on April 6, 2011 at 20:10 #

    [...] Read on and download » [...]

  63. WordPress Plugin Releases for 07/19 | Serradinho on July 25, 2011 at 02:25 #

    [...] MultiSiteManager [...]

Please support our OpenSource developments. Donate some bucks! Use the form in the upper right of this page, and get a backlink!

Comment on this article

 (not published)


Comments can be revised for 30 minutes after publishing.