{"id":153386,"date":"2016-03-30T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/premium.wpmudev.org\/blog\/?p=153386"},"modified":"2019-04-25T22:08:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T22:08:52","slug":"wordpress-multisite-masterclass-activation-configuration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-activation-configuration\/","title":{"rendered":"WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Activation and Configuration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome back to our six-part WordPress Multisite masterclass. In part two of this series, you&#8217;ll learn how to activate Multisite and get your network up and running.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll walk you through the installation process, then show you how to create sites on your network, add users, install themes and plugins and configure your network settings.<\/p>\n<p>In this series, you\u2019ll learn everything you need to know to create your own network, add sites to it or let users add their own, and manage the network. You\u2019ll learn how to ensure your network is secure and high performing and how to create a successful community of users and sites.<\/p>\n<p>Before you start on this part of the course, however, I recommend you read <a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-getting-started\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Getting Started<\/a>, which offers an introduction to Multisite and this series.<\/p>\n<p>Read it already? Great! Let&#8217;s get started.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Missed a tutorial in our WordPress Multisite Masterclass series? You can catch up on all six posts here:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-getting-started\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Getting Started<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-activation-configuration\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Activation and Configuration<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-user-site-registration\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Site and User Registration<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-domain-mapping\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Client Sites and Domain Mapping<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-creating-community\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Creating a Community<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-managing-your-network\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Managing your Network<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What You&#8217;ll Need<\/h2>\n<p>To follow along with this part of the course, you&#8217;ll need the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An existing WordPress installation. This can be one you&#8217;ve already been working with or a fresh install. I recommend working with a new one as it will give you the most options and avoid any risk of you breaking your existing site. Don&#8217;t try this out on your live site without <a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/premium-freemium-wordpress-backup-plugins\/\" target=\"_blank\">making a backup first<\/a>!<\/li>\n<li>A code\u00a0editor for editing your site&#8217;s <code>wp-config.php<\/code>\u00a0and <code>.htaccess<\/code> files. I use <a href=\"https:\/\/panic.com\/coda\/\" target=\"_blank\">Coda for Mac<\/a> as it also includes FTP or you could choose one from <a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/text-editors-developers\/\" target=\"_blank\">our recommendations<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>If your code editor doesn&#8217;t have FTP built in, a FTP client that will let you download and upload files to your site, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/filezilla-project.org\" target=\"_blank\">FileZilla<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>If you prefer to work on a local site rather than a remote one, a local installation of WordPress set up and running on MAMP or similar (you won&#8217;t need FTP if you do this but you will need a code editor). <a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/develop-wordpress-locally-mamp\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read how to get this set up in our guide<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m assuming that you&#8217;re already familiar with the WordPress interface and that you&#8217;re not too scared of editing files directly, although you&#8217;ll only have to do a bit of this, so don&#8217;t worry!<\/p>\n<h2>Activating Multisite on Your WordPress Installation<\/h2>\n<p>Multisite isn&#8217;t extra software you have to download and install because it&#8217;s already part of WordPress, but you have to activate it to make it work.<\/p>\n<h3>Before You Start<\/h3>\n<p>Before you activate Multisite, you need to consider whether you want to use subdomains or subdirectories for your network. Here&#8217;s a quick recap on what that means:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Using subdomains means that each site will have a URL like\u00a0<code>http:\/\/site1.yournetwork.com<\/code>. If you\u2019re planning to let people create their own site, you\u2019ll need to have wild card subdomains activated for your hosting.<\/li>\n<li>Using subdirectories means that each site will have a URL like\u00a0<code>http:\/\/yournetwork.com\/site1<\/code>. You can\u2019t choose this option on an established site that you\u2019re converting to a network as it may cause clashes with URLs already created on your site.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you&#8217;re activating Multisite on a site that&#8217;s more than a month old, you&#8217;ll only have the option to select subdomains. If you&#8217;re working on a local site, you&#8217;ll only have the subdirectories option.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"subdomains-with-wildcard\">Setting up Subdomains and Wildcard Subdomains<\/h3>\n<p><em>If you&#8217;re using subdirectories, ignore this section.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re using\u00a0subdomains and you expect a lot of sites will be created on your network, or people will be creating their own sites, their subdomains won&#8217;t work unless you have wild card subdomains set up. If you&#8217;re planning on using domain mapping for all of the sites in your network, however, or you&#8217;re happy to manually set up each subdomain as you create a news site, then you won&#8217;t need wild card subdomains.<\/p>\n<p>You can set up subdomains in cPanel, which your hosting provider should have given you access to (check with them if you&#8217;re not sure). In cPanel, go to <strong>Domains &gt; Subdomains<\/strong> to see the page for configuring subdomains. Below you can see a screenshot of a site where I&#8217;ve got wildcard subdomains configured:<\/p>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/cpanel-subdomains.png\" alt=\"Adding subdomains in cPanel\" width=\"735\" height=\"341\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>To set up a specific subdomain, add it to the <strong>Subdomain<\/strong> field and click <strong>Create<\/strong>. So if you added a site to your network with the URL <code>http:\/\/new-site.yournetwork.com<\/code>, you&#8217;d add <strong>new-site<\/strong> as the subdomain. Alternatively, to set up wild card subdomains, type <strong>*<\/strong> (an asterisk) in the <strong>Subdomains<\/strong> field, and click <strong>Create<\/strong>. That way you won&#8217;t have to create any subdomains manually.<\/p>\n<p><em>Note: Some of the cheaper hosting providers don&#8217;t allow wild card subdomains and some don&#8217;t give you cPanel access. If that&#8217;s the case for you, my recommendation would be to <a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/hosting\/\" target=\"_blank\">find a better hosting provider<\/a> but if you can&#8217;t, ask them to set up subdomains for you.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Activating Multisite<\/h3>\n<p>So now you&#8217;re ready, it&#8217;s time to activate Multisite!<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>If you haven&#8217;t already, install\u00a0WordPress how you usually would. Either use a script provided by your hosting provider or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/download\/\" target=\"_blank\">download WordPress<\/a> and use the &#8220;famous 5 minute install&#8221; to <a href=\"http:\/\/codex.wordpress.org\/Installing_WordPress\" target=\"_blank\">install it<\/a> on your server or local machine.<\/li>\n<li>Open your <code>wp-config.php<\/code> file, which you&#8217;ll find in the folder where you installed WordPress. Find the line that reads:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div class=\"gist\" data-gist=\"rachelmccollin\/1bbe69171d839132e787\"><a class=\"loading\" href=\"https:\/\/gist.github.com\/rachelmccollin\/1bbe69171d839132e787.js\" target=\"_blank\">Loading gist rachelmccollin\/1bbe69171d839132e787<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"gist-consent-notice\" style=\"display:none\">\n<p>Please <a href=\"javascript:Cookiebot.renew()\">update your cookie preferences<\/a> to enable preference cookies to view this gist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>\u00a0Immediately above that line, create a new line that reads as follows:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div class=\"gist\" data-gist=\"rachelmccollin\/03590465793cf6bee81b\"><a class=\"loading\" href=\"https:\/\/gist.github.com\/rachelmccollin\/03590465793cf6bee81b.js\" target=\"_blank\">Loading gist rachelmccollin\/03590465793cf6bee81b<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"gist-consent-notice\" style=\"display:none\">\n<p>Please <a href=\"javascript:Cookiebot.renew()\">update your cookie preferences<\/a> to enable preference cookies to view this gist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>\u00a0Now save your <code>wp-config.php<\/code> file.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The next step is to visit the WordPress admin screens and install Multisite.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>In the WordPress admin, go to <strong>Tools &gt; Network Setup<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>You will be taken to the Network Install screen. Enter or select the following:\n<ul>\n<li>Sub-directory \/ subdomain install \u2013 if this is available, select the one you want.<\/li>\n<li>Network Title \u2013 this will be pre-filled\u00a0for you and you can edit it if you want \u2013 or you can always do this later in your network settings.<\/li>\n<li>Network Admin Email \u2013 if this is different from the email you&#8217;ve already provided, edit it.<\/li>\n<li>Click the <strong>Install<\/strong> button.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>Next, you&#8217;ll be taken to the screen for enabling the network, which will show you some code you need to add to your <code>wp-config.php<\/code> and <code>.htaccess<\/code> files:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/enable-network.png\" alt=\"Multisite enable network screen\" width=\"735\" height=\"564\" \/> <\/div>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>Open each of your <code>wp-config.php<\/code> and<code> .htaccess<\/code> files and edit them in line with the text provided on the screen. If you can&#8217;t find <code>.htaccess<\/code> on your server, it may because hidden files aren&#8217;t visible: change the settings in your code editor if you&#8217;re using one to access your files.<\/li>\n<li>Save both files.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>WordPress Multisite will now be installed. You&#8217;ll need to log in again and when you do so you&#8217;ll see the dashboard:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-grid cgrid-row\">\n<div class=\"cgrid-col cgrid-col-span-full\"><div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Multisite-dashboard-1.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite dashboard\" width=\"735\" height=\"519\" \/> <\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Now you can start adding sites, plugins, themes and more.<\/p>\n<h2>Creating a Site<\/h2>\n<p>Your network will have just one site in it to start with: the base site, which is the site you started with before you activated Multisite. You can add extra sites yourself as the network administrator or you can enable site creation\u00a0for users. The next part of this course is dedicated to\u00a0enabling site creation for users, so here I&#8217;ll show you how to do it yourself.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Go to the network admin screens by clicking on <strong>My Sites &gt; Network Admin<\/strong> in the admin menu.<\/li>\n<li>Go to <strong>Sites &gt; Add New<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Type in the site address (i.e. the subdomain or subdirectory), the site title\u00a0and the email address of the site administrator, as shown in the screenshot below:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/add-site.png\" alt=\"Adding a site in WordPress Multisite\" width=\"735\" height=\"335\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>Then click the <strong>Add Site<\/strong> button\u00a0and\u00a0WordPress will create the new site for you.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve used your own email address for the site administrator account, you&#8217;ll be able to see it when you hover over the<strong> My Sites <\/strong>link in the admin menu. If you&#8217;re not the administrator, you can still see it from your network admin screens. Click <strong>Sites &gt; All Sites<\/strong> to view all of your sites. Below you can see my new site listed along with the base site:<\/p>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/all-sites.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite sites screen\" width=\"735\" height=\"308\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>Note that the URLs for my sites are a bit long as I&#8217;ve installed Multisite in a subfolder of my main site. Yours should be more straightforward.<\/p>\n<h2>Editing and Configuring Sites<\/h2>\n<p>As the network administrator, you can either edit sites via their dashboard and admin screens, or via the <strong>Sites<\/strong> section of the network admin screens. There are some things you can only do via the <strong>Sites<\/strong> screens, such as enabling a theme for a site.<\/p>\n<h3>Changing a Site&#8217;s Status<\/h3>\n<p>From the <strong>Sites<\/strong> screen in the network admin, you can change the status of each of the sites in your network. The options are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Deactivate. This is what happens to a site on the network\u00a0if its site\u00a0administrator deletes it. The site administrator can no longer access and the public can&#8217;t visit\u00a0it but you as the network administrator can. Below you can see that a deactivated site is shown in red in the network admin screen \u2013 it&#8217;s marked as deleted which is confusing as it hasn&#8217;t been deleted, just deactivated. To activate a site again, click the <strong>Activate<\/strong> link.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/site-deactivated.png\" alt=\"deactivated site marked in red\" width=\"735\" height=\"337\" \/> <\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Archive &#8211; The effect of archiving a site is the same as deactivating it, except for the error message that&#8217;s displayed\u00a0when people try to visit it. The site administrator can&#8217;t access it, nor can the public, but you as the network administrator can access it via the Sites screen in network admin.<\/li>\n<li>Spam &#8211; This doesn&#8217;t delete the site, but does make it inaccessible to anyone, including the network administrator. It&#8217;s the final step before hitting the delete link.<\/li>\n<li>Delete &#8211; This deletes the site, its database tables and all uploads associated with it. Used with caution!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To do\u00a0any of these, hover over the site&#8217;s name in the <strong>Sites<\/strong> screen and then click the relevant link.<\/p>\n<h3>Site Info<\/h3>\n<p>In the network admin\u00a0screens, go to <strong>Sites<\/strong> to view your sites, and then hover over one of them and click <strong>Edit<\/strong>. This will take you to the site editing tabs, with the <strong>Info<\/strong> tab selected by default:<\/p>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/edit-site-info.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite edit site info\" width=\"735\" height=\"389\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>Here you can view and edit the basic information relating to the site, such as its status and URL. Sometimes I&#8217;ve created a site and made a typo when I was typing its URL \u2013 if that happens to you, this is where you edit it. The site will still work with the new URL, you&#8217;ll be pleased to know.<\/p>\n<h3>Site Users<\/h3>\n<p>You can add and edit the site&#8217;s users by clicking the <strong>Users<\/strong> tab:<\/p>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/edit-site-users.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite editing users for a site\" width=\"735\" height=\"596\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>Here you&#8217;ll see all of the users for the site. Use this screen to add an existing user from your network to the site or to add a new user. Whichever of these options you use, you&#8217;ll have to select a role &#8211; which will be the user&#8217;s role for this site, not for the network.<\/p>\n<h3>Site Themes<\/h3>\n<p>Click on the <strong>Themes<\/strong> tab to enable themes for individual sites. This is useful if you&#8217;re running\u00a0a network of your own sites or of client sites, and each site will have its own theme. That way, you or your site administrators can&#8217;t accidentally activate the wrong theme. If your users are creating their own sites then you&#8217;ll want to make more themes available to them, which you do by network enabling the themes (more of which shortly).<\/p>\n<p>In the screenshot\u00a0below you can see two themes that are installed on my network but not network activated. The themes that are network activated aren&#8217;t shown on this screen, as you don&#8217;t have the option to enable them for individual sites.<\/p>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/edit-site-themes.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite enabling themes for a site\" width=\"735\" height=\"476\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>To enable a theme for a site, click the <strong>Enable<\/strong> link beneath its name. It will then appear on the <strong>Themes<\/strong> screen in that site&#8217;s admin screens.<\/p>\n<h3>Site Settings<\/h3>\n<p>The <strong>Settings<\/strong> tab gives you access to more settings for an individual site on your network:<\/p>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/edit-site-settings.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite editing site settings for one site\" width=\"735\" height=\"477\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>Here, you have access to all of the settings relating to the site. I tend to avoid this screen as I prefer to use the settings screens in the site admin for each site, but it&#8217;s a handy screen to have if, for some reason, the site admin screens aren&#8217;t accessible (e.g. the domain isn&#8217;t working) and you need to change a setting to make things work again.<\/p>\n<p>If you do edit these, take care as you could be overriding settings made by the site administrator.<\/p>\n<h2>Managing\u00a0Users<\/h2>\n<p>As I&#8217;ve already mentioned, you can add users to a specific site via the <strong>Users<\/strong>\u00a0tab in the <strong>Sites<\/strong> admin screens. You can also add users to your network, and edit their details, via the <strong>Users<\/strong> screens.<\/p>\n<p>These screens work in a very similar way as for a standalone WordPress site, with one exception: there&#8217;s information on\u00a0which sites the user\u00a0has an account for. Below you can see the users\u00a0on my new site, with a site admin user set up for the site I just created:<\/p>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/users.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite users screen\" width=\"735\" height=\"368\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>You can see there&#8217;s an extra column that shows you which sites your user has been added to.<\/p>\n<p>You can use this screen to access the user profile screen, or delete the user \u2013 hover over the username, then click the <strong>Delete<\/strong> link. Deleting a user\u00a0won&#8217;t delete a site they&#8217;ve created \u2013 if you have a user set up a spammy account and a splog (spam blog), you&#8217;ll need to delete both the user and the site.<\/p>\n<p>To add a user, click on the <strong>Add New<\/strong>\u00a0button, which will take you through the same process as for a standalone site. If you then want to add that user to a site, you can do so via that site&#8217;s admin screens or via the <strong>Sites &gt; Users<\/strong> tab.<\/p>\n<h2>Installing Themes and Plugins<\/h2>\n<p>Plugin and theme installation can only be done by the network administrator, not by site administrators. Let&#8217;s take a look at how you do this, and how you then activate or enable those themes or plugins for the sites on your network.<\/p>\n<h3>Installing and Activating Themes<\/h3>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve installed a theme you can enable it for sites in your network\u00a0in one of two ways: you can enable\u00a0them for individual sites or you can network enable\u00a0them. A theme can only be activated on a site (by the network administrator or the site administrator) if it&#8217;s been network enabled\u00a0or enabled\u00a0for that site.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how you install a theme and network enable\u00a0it:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>In the network admin screens, go to\u00a0<strong>Themes &gt; Add New<\/strong>\u00a0and install the theme in the same way as you would for a standard WordPress site.<\/li>\n<li>On the &#8216;Installing Theme&#8217; screen that appears, click the\u00a0<strong>Network Enable<\/strong>\u00a0link.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Alternatively, to network enable a theme you&#8217;ve already installed, click on\u00a0<strong>Themes<\/strong>\u00a0to go to the Themes screen, then click the\u00a0<strong>Network Enable<\/strong>\u00a0link below a theme.<\/p>\n<p>You can also enable a theme just for one\u00a0site. This can be useful if your network runs lots of sites each of which will need a different theme, for example if you&#8217;re hosting client sites. Enabling themes by site means that other themes won&#8217;t be available to sites which don&#8217;t have them enabled, so site admins can&#8217;t\u00a0accidentally activate\u00a0the wrong theme.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how to do it:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>In the Network admin, click on\u00a0<strong>Sites<\/strong>\u00a0to view all of your sites.<\/li>\n<li>Hover\u00a0over the name of the site you want to enable the theme for and click the\u00a0<strong>Edit<\/strong>\u00a0link that appears.<\/li>\n<li>Click the\u00a0<strong>Themes<\/strong>\u00a0tab to view the themes settings screen for the site:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div class=\"image-grid cgrid-row\">\n<div class=\"cgrid-col cgrid-col-span-full\"><div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/edit-site-themes.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite enabling themes for a site\" width=\"735\" height=\"476\" \/> <\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>Under the theme you want to enable, click the\u00a0<strong>Enable<\/strong>\u00a0link.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Now when you go to the site administration screens for that site and click on\u00a0<strong>Appearance &gt; Themes<\/strong>, you&#8217;ll see the theme you&#8217;ve enabled included in the available themes for activation:<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-grid cgrid-row\"><div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/site-theme-enabled.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite - theme enabeld in site's themes screen\" width=\"735\" height=\"383\" \/> <\/div><\/div>\n<h3>Installing\u00a0and Activating Plugins<\/h3>\n<p>Plugins also have to be installed by the network administrator, but they work differently with regard to the sites on the network. You can&#8217;t activate\u00a0a plugin for an individual site. Instead, you can network activate it so it runs on every site on the network, or you can just install it\u00a0so that individual sites can choose to activate it. The enabling step doesn&#8217;t apply.<\/p>\n<p>Network activating plugins is useful if you&#8217;ve written or downloaded a plugin to provide features which you want all of your sites to have, for example if you want all of your sites to have a caching or SEO plugin activated. There are some plugins that can only be network enabled. For example, on my network of client sites I&#8217;ve installed the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/project\/snapshot\/\" target=\"_blank\">Snapshot<\/a>\u00a0backup plugin to ensure that all of the sites are backed up regularly. Here&#8217;s how to install and network activate a plugin:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>In the network admin screens, got to\u00a0<strong>Plugins &gt; Add New<\/strong>\u00a0and install the plugin as you would in a normal WordPress site.<\/li>\n<li>In the &#8220;Installing Plugin&#8221; screen, click the\u00a0<strong>Network Activate<\/strong>\u00a0link.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The plugin will now run on all the sites in your network and site admins won&#8217;t be able to disable it.<\/p>\n<p>But what if you want to just activate the plugin on one site? You do that\u00a0by installing the plugin as a network administrator and then activating the plugin for the site.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>In the network admin screens, got to\u00a0<strong>Plugins &gt; Add New<\/strong>\u00a0and install the plugin as you would in a normal WordPress site. Below I&#8217;ve installed the WooCommerce plugin. WooCommerce is a plugin that you might not want to activate for all the sites in your network unless your network is just for store owners.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/plugin-installed.png\" alt=\"Plugin activation screen for site in a Multisite network\" width=\"735\" height=\"427\" \/> <\/div>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>In the &#8216;Installing Plugin&#8217; screen,\u00a0click the\u00a0<strong>Return to Plugin Installer<\/strong>\u00a0link.<\/li>\n<li>Visit the site admin screens for the site you want to activate the plugin for and click the\u00a0<strong>Plugins<\/strong>\u00a0link in the admin menu.<\/li>\n<li>Under the plugin you want to activate, click the\u00a0<strong>Activate<\/strong>\u00a0link as you would in a normal WordPress site. The plugin will then be active, as shown in the screenshot below:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/activate-plugin-on-site.png\" alt=\"activating a plugin on a site in a Multisite network\" width=\"735\" height=\"423\" \/> <\/div>\n<h2>Configuring Network Settings<\/h2>\n<p>The final set of screens you&#8217;ll need to use as a network admin is the network settings screens. There are two screens here:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Network Setup<\/strong> takes you to the screen you saw during installation with the code you need to add to your <code>wp-config.php<\/code> and <code>.htaccess<\/code> files. Refer to this if you ever have problems in the future and need to edit those files.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Network Settings<\/strong> gives you the ability to edit settings for your network.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To access your network settings, click on <strong>Settings &gt; Network Settings<\/strong> to access the settings screen:<\/p>\n<div  class=\"wpdui-pic-regular  \"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-735x735 size-735x735\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/network-settings.png\" alt=\"WordPress Multisite network settings screens\" width=\"735\" height=\"576\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>Settings you can customize are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The title of your network<\/li>\n<li>The network admin&#8217;s email address<\/li>\n<li>Registration settings: whether users can register accounts and\/or sites, whether site admins can add new users, and email domains and site names which are banned.<\/li>\n<li>New site settings: the content of the welcome email for site admins and users and the first page, post and comment created on new sites.<\/li>\n<li>Upload settings: file types permitted and maximum file size<\/li>\n<li>Language settings: the default language<\/li>\n<li>Menu settings: enable or disable the plugins menu item for site admins. If you disable this they won&#8217;t be able to activate or deactivate plugins.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We&#8217;ll return to this screen in more detail later in this series when you learn how to configure the user sign up and site creation\u00a0process.<\/p>\n<h2>Activating and Configuring Multisite Is Easier Than You Think<\/h2>\n<p>Now you know everything you need to know to set\u00a0up Multisite and configure your network, including adding sites, and installing and activating themes and plugins.<\/p>\n<p>In the next part of this series, part three, you&#8217;ll learn about the site creation process. We&#8217;ll enable site creation by users and configure that process to enhance the user experience. Some of this you can do via the settings screens and some you can do by writing code or using a plugin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Missed a tutorial in our Multisite masterclass series? You can catch up on all six posts here:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-getting-started\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Getting Started<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-activation-configuration\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Activation and Configuration<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-user-site-registration\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Site and User Creation<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-domain-mapping\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Client Sites and Domain Mapping<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-creating-community\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Creating a Community<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-multisite-masterclass-managing-your-network\/\" target=\"_blank\">WordPress Multisite Masterclass: Managing Your Network<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In part two of our WordPress Multisite Masterclass, learn how to activate your network and get it up and running with our in-depth installation guide. We&#8217;ll also show you how to create sites, add users, install themes and plugins, and carefully configure your network settings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":347011,"featured_media":153776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"blog_reading_time":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_tutorials_categories":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[557,263,4161],"tags":[9958,10445],"tutorials_categories":[],"class_list":["post-153386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development","category-tutorials","category-wpmudev","tag-multisite-2","tag-multsite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/347011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153386"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214778,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153386\/revisions\/214778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153386"},{"taxonomy":"tutorials_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorials_categories?post=153386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}