Virtualmin, Wordpress, Multisite & SSL

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#1 Sun, 02/25/2018 - 11:56
neilticktin

Virtualmin, Wordpress, Multisite & SSL

With Google's push to SSL -- I want to move all of our WordPress sites to SSL. The problem is the best way to do this in a multisite environment. I'm thinking, but not yet succeeding with the following.

  • Webmin/Virtualmin on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with dns for IP as wp.xyz.com
  • Install *.xyz.com wildcard certificate on Webmin
    • Did this at Webmin > Webmin Configuration > SSL Encryption
  • Setup a Virtualmin server called wordpress.xyz.com (yes, the name different to help discriminate between webmin/virtualmin and Wordpress
  • Setup WordPress multisite at wordpress.xyz.com
  • Add WordPress sites on the multisite such as:
    • a.xyz.com
    • b.xyz.com
    • abc.om
    • def.com
    • a.def.com

Because several of the domains are different than the wildcard SSL, and there's more than one, I believe we need a different "setup" for each of the domains so that an SSL certificate can be installed. The issue is that we want to use a single multisite WordPress installation -- with shared plug-ins, etc... Otherwise, management and licensing are a nightmare.

I'm thinking that:

  • for each subdomain of xyz.com, we would just add an Virtualmin alias for that server.
  • And, for each domain that is different from xyz.com, we would add a subserver to the wordpress.xyz.com virtual server,
  • and then install certificates at that virtualmin subserver (let's use abc.com) at Server Configuration > Manage SSL Certificate and if necessary configure the ssl web site at Services > Configure Website for SSL > SSL Options
Of course, the problem is now that we're now pointing to a completely different public_html directory -- and not sharing WordPress installation. So, I'm thinking here we would log into the command line and create a symbolic link to the WordPress install with something like this

ln -s /home/wordpress/public_html /home/wordpress/domains/abc.com/public_html

Initially, the problem was that when I do this, I'd get "redirected you too many times" and the page won't load. I believe that was as a caching issue -- and now have this method working more or less with an assortment of types of certificates, including ones from sslforfree.com

For completeness of this post, if the above worked, and I was using a wildcard or multisite SSL for def.com -- I would create an alias of the subserver def.com for a.def.com to handle this -- otherwise, it would go to the top level wordpress.xyz.com site.

Thoughts of a better way to go?

Thanks!

Tue, 12/25/2018 - 10:35
Zayker

Hi I've the same error issue, did you solved it$ Thanks in advance

Mon, 09/16/2019 - 15:10
ben_tvpp

I am also trying to do this. Any idea how.

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