Are you seeking guidance on preparing for a subdomain multisite, whether it’s on your local PC or your hosting platform? This guide provides comprehensive instructions to prepare for a subdomain multisite on both your local PC and your host.
Localhost Setup
Edit your hosts file to account for all subdomains that are contained in the multisite backup and then install to localhost.com which you set up as an alias for localhost. The hosts file location on Windows is: “C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc” and on MAC” and on MAC “/private/etc/hosts”. For example, if you have a backup with a multisite containing subsites myoriginalsite.com, sub1.myoriginalsite.com, and sub2.myoriginalsite.com.
To install this multisite on localhost do the following:
- Open your hosts file in a text editor.
- Add the following to the hosts file:
127.0.0.1 localhost.com
127.0.0.1 sub1.localhost.com
127.0.0.1 sub2.localhost.com
- Save the hosts file
- Browse to http://localhost.com/installer.php and proceed with the install.
After the installer completes you should be able to properly view localhost.com, sub1.localhost.com, and sub2.localhost.com.
Hosting Provider
When working with a public facing server make sure you have set up wildcard DNS if you haven’t already (or create specific DNS records for each subdomain site). The article Configuring Wildcard Subdomains explains how to set up wildcard DNS for use with multisite.
Once the groundwork for the subdomain multisite setup is complete, you can proceed with installing the multisite on either your PC or your host. Duplicator Pro streamlines the backup and migration process for your multisite, offering a range of user-friendly options. Refer to the following guides for detailed insights into how Duplicator Pro facilitates multisite migrations: