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Installing WordPress MU on a Dreamhost Server

October 25, 2006 in MySQL, OSS, Open Source, OpenSource, PHP, RSS, WP MU, WordPress MU, blandname, blog, browser, cms, code, content management solution, database, dreamhost, gzip, htaccess, mod-rewrite, ssh, tutorial, web, web browsers, web design, web development, weblog, weblog tools, wordpress, yottabite | 4 comments

Blandname is currently hosted with DreamHost, and we’ve been here for years. It’s cheap, offers lots of goodies, and one-click installs allow us to easily install and test web-based software. Not to mention that they also support Ruby on Rails, and give you SSH access and the ability to run a Jabber server as well as unlimited MySQL databases.

You’ve also probably gathered that blandname is currently running WordPress. Dreamhost has had a one-click install for WordPress 2 for a while now, and since it was handy at the time, we went for it.

But things change, and one-click installs often are not enough to satisfy most webmasters, which is how we got where we are today. Since my goal with blandname is to create another multiuser blog similar to what has already been running for years at yottabite, but instead of having one big weblog, we’d like to have multiple subdomains like string.blandname.com, which WordPress MU allows you to accomplish, automatically.

Unfortunately DreamHost doesn’t support WordPress MU’s subdomains by default yet (you can always send them an email), but we can still get away with subfolders, which is more than good enough for a test.

This guide will require familiarity with DreamHost’s control panel, as well as common Bash shell commands as we will be using SSH.

The first step is to make a test domain for you WordPress MU install. In my case, I navigated to the “Domains” section of the left-hand menu, then to the “Manage Domains” section of the DreamHost panel, and created the new subdomain test.blandname.com. You’ll want to make sure to select PHP5, and enable extra security. This typically takes about 10 minutes to complete, but we still have the database to add, so let’s get to that at the same time.

In the “goodies” section of the DreamHost control panel, select “Manage MySQL”. The default view is to set up a new MySQL database, which is what we’re going to do. Create a unique database name, the subdomain you would like it to use, as well as the data base username and password. Make sure to keep note of all of these settings as we will need them when installing WPMU.

DreamHost will have by now created a folder in your SSH root that will allow you to place files there and start some of the work while we wait for the subdomain to be created and propagate. Login to your server using SSH (you’ll need to use either your DreamHost hostname here or another web address for now – you can use the WordPress Mu domain later). Now we’ll navigate to the new subdirectory that was created when we setup the new subdomain by typing: cd test.blandname.com Change the folder name to whatever is pertinent in this case.

Now that we’re in the correct folder, we’ll grab the latest using the always-handy WGET. Here’s the code:

wget http://mu.wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

gunzip latest.tar.gz

tar -xvf latest.tar

cd wordpressmu-1.0 (this will probably change, ls -al will tell you the dirname)

cp -rf * /home/YOURUSERNAME/test.yourdomain.com/

cd ..

rm -rf wordpressmu-1.0/

Now we’ve got a clean directory structure in the root of our test domain, and we’re set to go ahead with the WordPress MU installation.

By now the subdomain has probably propagated because DreamHost is getting faster and faster, so using your web browser, navigate to test.yourdomain.com

Next you’ll want to retrieve the soiled napkin, SubEthaEdit file or whatever else it was that you used to jot down the database settings, and plop them in here. They are very straightforward, and this is typically the most problematic so check them twice but have no fear: if you mess up WP MU will tell you, and you can retrieve the settings from the “Manage MySQL” section in the DreamHost web control panel.

The rest is quite simple: you’ll be met with a typical WordPress installation page, but instead it’s for WorPress MU. The first question that needs to be asked is whether or not WordPress MU users will be using subdomains or subfolders of the root WPMU installation. As previously stated, DreamHost currently does not support subdomains by default (I’ve put in a request, here’s hoping), so we’ll select subfolders here. WP MU will have already placed the domain name you will be using in the yellow textfield, but if you had decided to use subfolders instead of the webroot, you’ll want to specify that here as this will affect all links as well as your RSS feeds.

Lastly, we’ll want to name our multi-user Wordpress MU blog, and specify the email address that you will use for things like spam reports, and replies to your comments on the parent blog.

Click on that small “submit” button, and let’s see what happens!

Hopefully on the next screen you’ll see this message:

Creating Database Config File: DONE Congrats! Your WPMU site has been set up and you have been sent details of your login and password in an email.

Click on the link provided, and get with customization, as we’re all done.

SSH is one powerful tool. You can do just about everything under the sun using an SSH login to a remote computer. SSH works very well in low-bandwidth situations like dialup, or satlinks.

But wakeup, we’re no longer in the 80s – people want GUIs, let’s give them fancy-pants graphics, bouncing cursors and silly linux wizards. Remotely.

Enter Xming, what I would name as top of my favorite applications. Xming is just like X over SSH, for dummies (or people who would rather spend more time working).

Xming allows you to connect to remote or local Linux workstations and servers and run full graphical applications on those remote machines on your local Windows computer.

Here’s how it works: all of the applications are run remotely, but when it comes to the graphics, the information that would invoke the graphics is sent to your local computer, not a bitmap or a sequence of bitmaps like VNC. Xming uses a local X server on your Windows computer in order to display your remote applications. This local X server is 2D accelerated, and it’s sometimes difficult to even notice that you are working remotely.

Since Xming can run in windowed or full-screen modes, you can establish thin client connections in this fashion, or you can publish applications Citrix-style.

Xming is completely free to install and setup. It is a great way to manage virtual machines, and in fact is often faster than Microsoft’s Virtual Server ActiveX control (surprised?), VMWare’s Virtual Machine view (even with VMWare tools!), and even Parallels speedy virtual machine view.

To set the whole thing up, you’ll need a computer running Microsoft Windows, one Linux box, a network connection between the two, but you won’t need much effort.

First install the Windows Xming server on your Windows computer. We’ll use Windows XP SP2 in this example, but it could easily be other varieties. Xming can be found on Sourceforge quite easily, download it, run the install (use defaults), and start XLauncher.

On the Linux computer this are slighlty more complicated, but not by much. For Gnome or KDE on Ubuntu Edgy, go to the System>Administration menu in your menu bar. In Administration, we’ll select login preferences as we’ll be setting up a new logon method (we’re using XDMCP). Select the Remote tab, and enable remote logon (same as local) to your Edgy Eft machine.

Now on your Windows machine, set up XLaunch to logon to your Linux machine using it’s IP address. Save the setting if you want, and connect. You will be presented with a logon screen to your Linux desktop!

blandname whitepaper published on Silicon.com

October 8, 2006 in Edgy, Eft, VMWare, VMWare Server, alpha, blandname, edgy eft, software, tutorial, ubuntu, ubuntu 6.10, virtual machines, virtualization, vm, web, whitepaper | No comments

Sometimes, I send articles from blogs or sites that I post to in order to have them published as white papers with business sites to see how well my content will fare. I typically don’t check up on them, and normally forget the logins shortly after submitting. However, I was just crawling through my Mint stats referer information, and noticed that one of the blandname articles got accepted to be published as a whitepaper at Silicon.com.

While this isn’t extremely exciting news, I was impressed nontheless that they didn’t edit the artcile at all – the whitepaper is wholly taken from my article on installing Ubuntu Edgy Eft Knot 3 on VMWare Server (if you haven’t read it yet check it out).

Alright back to work!

Allow Multiple Logins/Users for Mint Stats Tracker

October 6, 2006 in Mint, PHP, Statistics, Stats, Tracking, apache, hosting, htaccess, tutorial, web, web development | No comments

I have been testing the Mint PHP web statistics script for my development sites lately, and though I love it and the modular plugins you can get for it, one feature is sorely lacking – multiple user logins.

This quick hack is by no means revolutionary, but it certainly does get the job done.

A new feature in Mint 1.2.x is to allow what’s called a “client mode” where anyone can access the statistics without the need to login. While this works for locally hosted Mint installations, the is definitely sub-optimal when it comes to a production site.

The solution? I’m sure you may have guessed it already, but by using .htaccess, you can easily set up multiple logins to Mint!

In my case I use subdomains like minttea.mytestsite.com. Using SSH, I logon to minttea.mytestsite.com, and issue this command:

pico .htaccess

In order to add user to the file, you must append the .htaccess file with lines similar to this htaccess guide.

You’ll need to encrypt the usernames and passwords, but once it’s done you will have logins enabled.

Please note that this method is susceptible to a brute-force attack, but it will keep most people from poking around with your stats.

Once I have figured out a better way (using PHP for example) I will post it here too.

Use RDP Client 6 (from Vista) on Windows XP

September 26, 2006 in 64bit, Microsoft, RDP, RDP 6, Remote Desktop, TS, Terminal Server, VMWare, VMWare Server, Windows XP SP2, XP, longhorn, operating system, os, server, software, terminal services, tutorial, virtual machines, virtualization, vista, vm, windows | 16 comments

UPDATE! The newest client found in the release candidate of Vista does not require MUI files at all. There is some speculation that this may in fact end up as the Windows XP RDP 6 client. Download RDP 6 Client for Windows XP using this link.

I’ve been trying to get the Remote Desktop Connection v6.0 client from Vista to run on Windows XP for months now. Microsoft has announced many times that it’s available tobeta testers through the Connect site, but try as I may I still can’t find it (I’m not alone). So I went ahead and popped the new RDP 6 client from Vista onto Windows XP and tried everything from dependency walking to regsitry hacks to get it going but to no avail. So i kept testing, and set up a Google alert to let me know if anyone had found a method or any information that I could use to get this done.

I got results from the hook today, and what a big fish it was. It seems that I had probably fixed it early on, but hadn’t followed the proper procedure of changing one setting, testing, then moving to the next. I had simply set up all the hacks I thought were needed and plowed ahead. This is what happens when you test with a bottle in hand.

So here is what I found out today: originally from a thread by Caelum over at AtomicPC, this quick hack allows you to install the Microsoft Vista RDP v6 client on a Windows XP computer. Caelum was trying to get widescreen working in RDP on XP, and most of you know that works fine already. But Caelum, you’ve solved another problem in the process!

The 6th iteration of the MSTSC binary has a bunch of outstanding feautures. The biggest one for me is better support for sound and video over terminal services, but also includes ClearType support for those with LCD monitors so fonts look much nicer now.

Let’s get cracking.

1. Download this MSTSC zip(1.3MB)

2. Unpack the ZIP file to a folder

3. Run the “Install.cmd” file

4. Once the installation has completed, press any key to close the window

5. The script does everything but copy the MUI files to SYSTEM32, so we’ll do that now: open your Windows folder, then SYSTEM32, and then en-US. Copy the *.MUI files from your unzipped folder to the en-US folder

6. Run your remote desktop connection application the same way you normally would

Note: If you use Windows XP 64bit Edition you’ll want to grab the 64bit bit files from a 64bit version of Vista.

Now we can connect to Vista and Longhorn Terminal Server using the most up to date client and test the new features offered by Remote Desktop Client 6. I’ve tested this out on both using my VMWare Server virtual machines and the results are very favorable so far – it’s faster than before!

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