I am preparing to move all of my web and email hosting to a new server. I’ve been fortunate to have an in-trade hosting arrangement for many years now (thanks to Jeff at Iguanasoft!). But my host’s owner is winding down some of his equipment, and I had outgrown the server I was on. I’ve secured a new server at Slicehost (a 1024slice running Ubuntu), and I’ll be transitioning my data over the next couple of weeks, as time allows.
I mainly mention this as warning that if my site appears to be down, email bounces, or any other strangeness occurs, it might be because I’m in the middle of moving things around. It will probably be another couple of days before I start shaking things up. While I’m moving thing around, I might try consolidating some of my stand-alone WordPress sites into a WordPress-MU setup. That would make upgrades and other site management tasks a bit easier, I think.
With a little luck, and a lot of attention to detail, you might never know that I’ve changed anything. Yeah, right! 
Watch this space for further announcements.
19 Comments
I would really be interested to see your post about migrating standalone WP installs into a WPMU install, Dougal.
Dougal? Hey Dougal? Where are ya’ man? Where did you go all of a sudden?
Uh…sorry about that.
Good luck with the move and make sure to let us know when you start. If you’re not back online within a reasonable amount of time we’ll send out the dogs to find you.
Hope the move goes well for you. Too many times, weird things happen when something was supposed to be routine.
Good luck with that move. That Slice Host looks quite interesting.
I thought Wordpress MU was for multiple blogs under one domain. Is it possible to have wordpress MU running several different blogs that each have their own domain and are hosted in separate accounts?
@Geof: I’ve actually done that last year. It’s fairly simple.
Welcome to Slicehost! It simply rocks - after so many bad hosting experiences, it’s a breath of fresh air to have a company that only promises what they can deliver, and then delivers above and beyond expectations.
Why go the WP to WPMU route? We are currently powering in the range of 13 or 14 separate domains (with a couple of different subdomain sites) all the same, single instance of code, WordPress install. Granted none of the sites have HUGE traffic numbers, but the all run as if they had their very own WP set of code powering them. If anyone’s interested drop me a line and let me know!
James - How do you get it around the configuration and stuff? That’s a cool idea
+ how does admin work? xD
And good luck if you go for a move, I tried, and it didn’t work, but then again I was consolidating domains into my Mu, not just sub-blogs
Welcome (in advance) to SliceHost
I’m sure you’ll find the staff and the hostees super friendly and helpful. We’re just that nice : )
Good luck with the move!
Welcome aboard, let us know if you need anything.
Congrats on outgrowing your current host! That’s a great problem to have!
To those of you who have moved WordPress sites before - what is the process? Are there any links you can provide? I currently have 2 sites running from 1 host, there are 2 SQL databases and I’ve kept the file installs in completely separate directories. One of the sites is really growing, so I may need to move it in the future.
Thanks, and congratulations again!
Geof: When I get started, I’m going to try to remember to make detailed notes, where possible. General strategy should be pretty simple, though. Step 1: Backup. Step 2: ???. Step 3: PROFIT!!!!1@1!!OMGWTFBBQ!!212! Or something like that.
stephen: WPMU can handle sub-domains of a primary domain out-of-the-box. It can also handle totally separate domains, though I can’t remember if that’s built-in or if it requires a plugin.
James: I remember seeing something about a WP mod that used a separate wp-config file for each install, but a central location for all the main code. Would be glad to look at other solutions like that, but in my particular case I think WPMU might be a good fit. I’m the admin and only user for most of the sites in question, so having them all under one umbrella would actually be pretty convenient. But I’m sure others would like to see details on other ways to do it.
Perhaps this is the other system you’re looking for:
Virtual Multiblog for WordPress
Runs blogs in different directories using symbolic links, and can run blogs on multiple domains or subdomains.
@Geof and Dougal: Refer to the comments on this post: http://ocaoimh.ie/2008/02/05/wordpress-mu-133/
You can also check out my mods to Stephen’s work as well.
Even though you want to run WordPress MU I’d say you’re better off with WordPress. I’d say you’d find WPMU too constraining and anyway, it’s primary goal is to provide WP blogs to a community and make it easier to create new blogs.
I have a few domains running off one install of WP using a simple switch statement on the domain name in wp-config.php to set the right database details. That’s worked fairly well so far!
Hosting is so unbelievable cheap today. I pay about 50E/month for a root server with 4GB/AMD5600+ Dual, 400GB Raid1 and unlimited traffic. That opens possibilities I’ve never dreamed of a couple of years before.
Maybe you are going to add some features here, too!?
Good Luck!
That sounds exciting. I look forward to hearing about your experience of being on an Ubuntu server.
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