Requirements for a WordPress Installer Script [en]

To install 30+ WordPress blogs on a server, it would be nice to have an automatic installation script. Here is a list of what this script should do for me.

[fr] Pour installer plus de trente weblogs WordPress sur mon serveur, il serait utile d'avoir un script d'installation en PHP. Quelqu'un a offert d'en écrire un pour moi. Ce billet récapitule ce que devrait faire un tel script, de mon point de vue (installation et configuration de WordPress en fonction d'un nom d'utilisateur).

As you may know, I’m shortly going to install 30+ WordPress blogs on my server. Noderat on #wordpress kindly offered to have a go at writing a PHP script to automate WP installs. I sent him this list of what the ideal script should be able to do for me, but on second thoughts, I’m posting it here so that everybody may see it. Of course, if you know of an existing script which already does this, let me know!

  • take $username + $password as input
  • install wordpress in a subdir named “$username”, using table prefix “$username_” and with an extra user (on top of admin) named “$username” (password=”$password”), user level 3
  • mysql user should be “$username” too (password “$password” also), with grants only on the tables belonging to this weblog
  • set permalink scheme to
    /archives/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/ for monthlies and /categories for categories
  • generate .htaccess in directory, based on this template, with “blog” replaced by “$username” everywhere
  • in wp-config: define (‘WPLANG’, ‘fr’) and edit appropriate lines
  • wp-includes/languages and wp-content/plugins should be symlinked to directories I can specify in the script
  • blog admin password should be reset to something I can specify in the script

I should be able to edit the script config file to provide mysql root user + pass, wordpress database name.

It would also be interesting if the script was built in such a way that it could be further modified/developed to allow installation of blogs on separate subdomains rather than subfolders. From the point of view of the filesystem the blogs live in, this wouldn’t change much — but some extra WordPress options would need editing (e.g. blog address), as well as the Apache and Bind config files necessary to set up the subdomain. This is not mandatory, but could be useful at some point (if we’re thinking in the line of WordPress-farming).

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16 thoughts on “Requirements for a WordPress Installer Script [en]”

  1. Any other developers who are interested in helping with the project, I have a subversion server set up so all of us can work on it at once. email me at chris (at) coggburn [dot] us and I will give you info for accessing the repository.

  4. I’m not firmly stuck on PHP. If somebody takes this, and does something similar in any other language, I’ll be just as happy. The point is just a first step towards something that would make it viable to open a WordPress farm.

  5. I'm not firmly stuck on PHP. If somebody takes this, and does something similar in any other language, I'll be just as happy. The point is just a first step towards something that would make it viable to open a WordPress farm.

  6. I have a solution which just allowed me to install 30 WordPress blogs in under five minutes. I’ll post details about it later.

    It involves one shell script, one php script, a textfile with a list of users to create weblogs for, and an image directory of a WordPress install, tweaked to your liking (with symlinks where it is possible if you like them).

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  8. Scripts for a WordPress Weblog Farm
    A first step to WordPress-farming: a shell script and a PHP script which allow you to easily install a whole lot of WordPress weblogs in only a few minutes (I installed over 30 in less than 5 minutes). Scripts require adapting to your environment, of c…

  11. Hi,
    I am wanting to do a multi-blog install on one site. Very interested in your ideas. Tried to check on thiscomment:

    We have just made a wordpress installer that install multiple wordpress blogs to any cpanel webserver.
    Yes you can install 1000 wordpress blogs with 1 click!
    http://www.wpinstaller.com
    Comment by Tommy — 12/3/200

    but it could not be found.

    I am very new to blogging, wordpress, and php. I have studied and implimented wp, over the last 2-3 months. Alot of studying.

    I need help with the multi-blog install. Can I get help with it, and directions to a simple install script?

    Thanks,
    Tom

  13. Doug–

    I just tried http://www.wpinstaller.com and it was there for me… Some of the links are broken but if you use the ones in the right hand menu, those work…

    I’m pretty new to WordPress but this idea (provisioning blogs in bulk) is definitely of interest to me. I can think of projects where this woudl come in enormously handy.

    I think MU WordPress may be a better option, though, as it’s from the real WordPress team and likely to be widely used and tested.

  14. Would seem you’d want a different variable for the subdirectory name rather than your login user id. that way, you could get some additional seo factors out of the blog directory structure.

    There are scripts out on the market that will do this already. not sure if you’re friend is going to do it for free or not.

    Randy

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  16. I know this is old, but I am interested in such a script and could not find “scripts out on the market that will do this already” anywhere !
    Updated informations anybody ? Thanks.

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