Title: How to debug multisite setup?
Last modified: May 18, 2025

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# How to debug multisite setup?

 *  [freecomm](https://wordpress.org/support/users/freecomm/)
 * (@freecomm)
 * [1 year ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/how-to-debug-multisite-setup/)
 * I installed WP on a LAMP stack using instructions here – [https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/multisite/create-network/](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/multisite/create-network/).
   I can see the network admin menu and can create a site but when I try to access
   it, I get 404. I am using a subdomain setup. How do I debug what is going on 
   here? 

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

 *  [George Appiah](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gappiah/)
 * (@gappiah)
 * [1 year ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/how-to-debug-multisite-setup/#post-18471242)
 * Please see the **“Before You Create A Network”** document here: [https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/multisite/prepare-network/](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/multisite/prepare-network/)
 * Note that WordPress multisite subdomains are virtual. If you’re getting 404, 
   that tells me your subdomains have their own directories (document root)… which
   is the wrong way to do this.
 * From the high-level view, there are two ways to configure your subdomains for
   WordPress multisite:
 * The simplest way is to create a `CNAME` DNS record for each subdomain (e `blog.
   example.com`) or a single wildcard subdomain record for all subdomains (`*.example.
   com`) pointed at the primary Multisite domain (`example.com`). With this, no 
   additional teak is needed on the web server.
 * The other option is to use DNS `A` record instead (individual subdomains or wildcard),
   pointed at the IP address of the hosting server. But with this, you also need
   to have vhost config for the subdomain(s) configured on the hosting server, but
   pointed at the same directory (document root) for the primary domain’s vhost 
   configuration.
 * What I’ve described above are the high-level tasks if you were manually creating
   DNS records and editing your web server’s configuration files. If you’re with
   a shared hosting provider, these tasks will likely be abstracted to some tools
   to create subdomains or somesuch. So, exactly how you do either of the above 
   will depend on your hosting environment and what tools your hosting provider 
   makes available to you.
 * Whichever way you do this, the end result is that, even before creating the subsite
   in WordPress, visiting `https://sub.example.com` (un-configured subdomain site)
   should take you to `https://example.com` (primary site).
 * That is, the request for the subdomain site needs to be forwarded to the WordPress
   installation at the primary site… before WordPress can capture it and redirect
   to the appropriate subsite (if it exists). If the subsite does not exist, WordPress
   should show a notice to that effect… but this is a `200` from WordPress, not `
   404` from your webserver.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

The topic ‘How to debug multisite setup?’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Networking WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/multisite/)
 * 1 reply
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [George Appiah](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gappiah/)
 * Last activity: [1 year ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/how-to-debug-multisite-setup/#post-18471242)
 * Status: not resolved

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