Description
Ensures logins are always done via SSL on a subdomain of the master domain, but that access to custom domains are always done over HTTP, to avoid certificate errors. For WordPress Multisite.
WordPress’ built-in
FORCE_SSL_LOGIN
and
FORCE_SSL_ADMIN
directives in
wp-config.php
work great, but are too restrictive in situations where you have custom domains — custom domains for which you cannot have SSL certificates. For sites on custom domains, we need to make sure that the login and admin access happens over the subdomain, which can be properly served over HTTPS.
What this Plugin does (incorporating Foolish Assumptions)
or, a readme you should read before implementing this plugin on your site.
This plugin filters the login, logout, home and admin URLs that WordPress uses to generate its internal links.
Why do we do this?
The Scenario
We have a WordPress Multisite network. Let’s call it
mynetwork.com
. We bought a fancy SSL wildcard certificate so we can offer
*.mynetwork.com
over a secure connection.
We’d very much like to use this secure connection for all logins, and for all admin access.
We also allow sites on this network to use a custom domain — like
demo-site.com
. We might be using WPMU Domain Mapping to achieve this. These sites have two domains, then —
demo-site.com
and
demo-site.mynetwork.com
.
If we switch on
FORCE_SSL_LOGIN
or
FORCE_SSL_ADMIN
, we have a problem. When users go to
https://demo-site.com/wp-login.php
, they get a certificate error. We have a wildcard certificate for
*.mynetwork.com
, but we can’t possibly have a valid SSL certificate installed for every custom domain!
Instead, we want to force all login pages and admin pages to be:
https://demo-site.mynetwork.com/wp-admin/…
We want all regular access to be:
http://demo-site.com/…
This plugin facilitates that — rewriting the
wp-login
(including logout) and
wp-admin
URLs to the first example, and rewriting all the others to the second style.
Foolish Assumptions
This plugin makes some (foolish) assumptions about your multisite network. You must make sure that these assumptions are true for your site, or you will find that this plugin may have unintended consequences and break things that are difficult to fix without manually disabling the plugin.
Your subdomains are in the format:
a.b
where
a
is, for example:
demo-site
.
b
is, for example:
mynetwork.com
.
a
must be a single domain component. (
a
can’t be, for example:
demo.site
)
Your wildcard certificate is configured properly for:
*.mynetwork.com
your network site URL
So if your network site URL is
www.mynetwork.com
, your wildcard cert will be fine. If it is just
mynetwork.com
, you will need another cert to avoid errors when you go to
https://mynetwork.com/wp-admin
.)
Your site already has the custom domains working.
I suggest the excellent WPMU Domain Mapping for this.
Your web server also needs to be set up to handle hosting a wildcard name virtual host. All of this is really part of the WPMU Domain Mapping set up, and not the set up for this plugin. I’m just, you know, mentioning it.
You have the
FORCE_SSL_LOGIN
setting in
wp-config.php
true.
You have the
FORCE_SSL_ADMIN
setting in
wp-config.php
false. We’ll handle that — WordPress’ forcing of SSL admins will conflict with this plugin.