I'm a teacher, our school has a computer lab.
Currently using Xampp and Wordpress to have kids blog. I keep a website with with links to all the kids blogs so that they can read each others blogs. It's all behind the districts fire wall so it's not accessible to anyone accept those on our LAN.
Question I have is this...The IP address change sometimes. This requires me to go figure out what the new IP address is on all 30 computers in the lab and to change all of the links so the kids can read each others blogs. Is there a way to type something else in the url bar in order to get to a computer blog. I'm wonding if I can do like http://computername/index and have it find that computers blog without needing an ip lookup?
I use remote desktop to control these computer with just the host name...will something like this work for browsers?
You should be able to browse to other computers in your local network by visiting http://computername/index, however there are some potential caveats to that depending on the architecture of the local network that you're using.
There is a better way, though. Rather than maintaining 30 separate XAMPP and Wordpress installs, why not designate one PC in the lab as the server, and set this up to run one instance of XAMPP and one instance of Wordpress Multisite?
This way, a nearly unlimited number of students can manage and browse their own blogs in a central repository, and you only have to maintain your software on a single machine. There are plugins which list all your sites, so you won't have to keep this list updated manually.
It also gives you the ability to further restrict your students' admin dashboards to keep them from getting distracted while twiddling with Wordpress' knobs and dials.
Finally, since everyone's blogs reside on the same machine, you will eventually have someone's password get compromised and one student's blog will be "hacked" by another, so you'll get the teachable moment of strong, secure passwords.
Related
Web newbie. I'm setting up a family website for sharing photos, etc. I plan to purchase my own domain name and will rent space on some hosting platform. I'm thinking ahead and will eventually want to create two more websites (another family website for my father's side of the family and a personal one for me). The frugal side of me would like to limit the number of domains and hosts I have to purchase/rent.
I want the family websites to be hidden as much as possible (no SEO and requiring a login just to get to the main page), but I want my personal website to be public.
So far, what I've read says the above is difficult or cumbersome to do with wordpress multisite. If this is true, then is it safe to assume separate wordpress installs are more appropriate? Or, should I consider a new/different domain for my personal website?
Thanks,
Jim
I would:
Buy one domain example.com
Buy one hosting (shared or VPS if you have the skills)
Create multiple independent Wordpress, and use subdomain site1.example.com, site2.example.com
protect some websites with Htaccess (some free plugin may also do the trick, but with htaccess you are sure Crawler (like Google) won't access it.
There is a plugin called My private site which allows you to achieve what you are looking for:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/jonradio-private-site/
A full detailed step by step (blogpost) tutorial on how to make your site private is published here:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-make-your-wordpress-blog-completely-private/
my friend and I recently bought Wordpress business and we thought that we would be allowed access to create multiple websites with premium themes and other benefits however it seems as though we can only have access to the themes for one year which is very confusing. Is there a way in which we could make websites for clients on this one site plan and the move it to th client's host and start out site from scratch for the next client?
The Wordpress people are not available to schedule a meeting with us until the end of the year sadly.
Thank you
Your best bet is to purchase some hosting and setup subdomains for your client's with the free download you get from wordpress.org.
I use a resseller account for my clients and have zero problems!
Hope this helps
I am simply wondering if it is possible to limit access to files hosted on a third party server to my website only?
Since I would not call myself a programmer I suppose some context is in order...
I am building a website using Wordpress and I plan to display quite a few videos on my website. If I were to purchase space on a third party server and upload a file such as www.thisistheserver.com/somevideofile.mp4 would it be possible to only allow that file to be accessed by a list of whitelisted ip addresses?
The goal is to upload a video specifically an mp4 since and have it display only on my website. So guys is this possible?
Answers to tell me I am way out of my depth and should hire an actual programmer will be accepted as well.
Yes, this is possible. Wordpress has basic plugins which allow you to password protect your site from a public facing perspective.
In addition, the majority of server hosts will provide software (e.g. cPanel) which allows you to restrict access to the server to white listed IPs only.
I don't know if a dedicated programmer would be required, if you've got some time and the desire to learn I think you'll be grand.
I'm being tasked at my company to work out a plan to handle 50 new clients that we're about to bring in. Each client is directly related and under an "umbrella" company that owns them all. All 50 sites will be pretty similar, each is for a different company so the themes may vary across them all.
We're planning to give them 10 themes to pick from for all 50 sites. So some of them will be very similar, some won't be at all.
Is Wordpress the best path? I'm very familiar with Wordpress. I've worked with Expression Engine before but am not as savvy as I am with Wordpress and I understand Expression Engine also has a multi site functionality.
So my question, is Wordpress Multi Site the best path for this? What would you do in my situation?
Also, if we wanted to create a user that has access to 10 of the 50 sites, is that possible? We'll need to narrow permissions.
Also, each site will need its own domain name. Is that possible?
Thanks guys!
Yes, Multisite can handle this easily.
To run Mapped Domains, using the MU Domain Mapping plugin cited by #Calle, you need to set up the network as sub-domains (opposed to a directories set up). And the mapped domains must be set as Parked Domains pointing to the directory of the WordPress Multisite installation.
Multisite user management can be a little tricky.
If some site of the network has really special requirements for its user's management, maybe you'll have a hard time.
All users of the network are given Subscriber status in all sites (this can be masked). You can easily assign one user as Administrator of 10 sites, give Super Admin access to others, use a network role management, etc.
You can have a couple of parent themes with the corporate identity and create child themes to accomodate specific needs.
Useful info:
Multisite 101, introduction to MS by one of its wizards, don't forget the tip jar if it's useful to you ;)
This ebook strives to pull it all together, explain you what skills you need to get started, and move you to the next step: running your own Network. Think of it as a basic tutorial in running your own Multisite.
Multisite Rationale, real case study for implementation of a MS Network, if you can find a document like this for Expression Engine, then you can make your choice pretty fast.
Wordpress Multisite can either be path based (www.domain.com/site1, www.domain.com/site2), or domain-based (www.site1.domain.com, www.site2.domain.com). I believe each of these sites have separate users; I'm not sure about your question about setting up a user that only has access to a certain number of the sites, but you can set up a "master user" that has access to all the sites on the network. If you use a domain based network for MS, you can then go into each of your domains you have bought for your 50 sites and forward them using DNS/.htaccess to the individual Wordpress Multisites.
I hope that makes sense :)
Is it possible to share blogroll links between different Wordpress Multi Network sites? I would like to link all sites to eachother (about 15) in a Network widget/menu on the right. All are pretty much in same niche.
I would not mind being able to manage some content as a Users database and Blogroll links centrally, I have been unable to find out how to do this.
It seems unique tables were generated per site, which makes me doubt if this is possible.
How can I get pretty statistics per subdomain? I don't want to create 15 sites in Analytics or Piwik, if this is no necessary.
Any tips for running Wordpress in an Networked environment are welcome.
There are a number of (unfortunately) premium plugins that will do as you ask:
Sitewide blogroll links
is purely a blogroll that can be centrally published. For something a bit more specific to the network, look into:
WP Social Blogroll
That one takes a little bit of doing to configure it, but it does work in Network mode.
For stats, you don't have a lot of good choices. I would tend to stick with Google Analytics, run a single master UA code and just use filters to shard off each of the network sites for reporting purposes. Depending on how your network is configured, there is (again, unfortunately) another premium plugin that specifically supports WordPress Network mode. If you are running it in sub-domains, that plugin should automatically track by sub-domain.