Multisite Membership Login

I am starting to wonder if WordPress is the correct selection for what I am trying to achieve. I have a master site, with multiple subsites:

SuperAdmin
MasterSite.com (BuddyPress/Forums and all accounts managed at this level)
-Sub1.com
-Sub2.com
-Sub3.com

I would like to have a common login (SSO) for these sites, so the user can browse the multiple sites without loggin into each of the subsites.

The issues currently are many since I am new to all of this. I am currently trying to get around the issue of having to login (as the admin) to each site I open to administer. This I assume is happening for all users too.

I am going to try to show the current content (from many of the sub-sites) on the MasterSite.com, and those subsites will have the current content and tutorials on them for each of the software packages they represent. (an example of the sub-sites using MSOffice would be a site for each package of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.) So the topics on the sub-sites will cater to the usage of each package, but activity summarized on the main site.

I have read about modifying the wp-config file to allow the cookies to work for the site. Then, I read about not to modify this on a MU installation. Which is it, and am I able to add the sites I want to have the cookie active for and something similar to SSO for a sign on one time and access all sites that are associated? In other words, do I add each of the sites in the COOKIE_DOMAIN entry, or else how can this be achieved?

I hope I was clear enough.

Hi Kevin,

While s2Member is compatible with WordPress Multisite Networking, the sites within a WordPress network are separate and not interconnected. That means you cannot share users, logins, or other data across the sites (including access control).

Please see the following from WordPress.org:

The sites in a multisite network are separate, very like the separate blogs at WordPress.com. They are not interconnected like things in other kinds of networks (even though plugins can create various kinds of interconnections between the sites). If you plan on creating sites that are strongly interconnected, that share data, or share users, then a multisite network might not be the best solution.

The s2Member Multisite feature allows you to offer the s2Member plugin to sub-sites, giving your sub-sites the ability to setup and use s2Member on their own. When you upgrade s2Member on the primary site, the s2Member plugin is automatically updated for all your sub-sites. However, things like access restrictions on one WP installation are not shared across WP installations (again, the WordPress Multisite feature itself isn’t designed to work like that).

There are plugins that allow you to get around these WordPress Multisite limitations, however they may or may not work with s2Member.

I know this is the standard answer that I have read in at least 3-4 other posts. It’s easy to cut and paste this stupid answer.

How about if you give a little additional advice in what the plugins are that you have seen used for this. I know that the Multisite User Management plugin can duplicate users across sites when setting the level you want them to be added, but does nothing for the ability to have a common login.

There is no hope of purchasing this plugin Pro from you guys unless you can point to additional information when people ask, instead of basically saying you are stupid to want to do this. It doesn’t work this way.

If I’d known that in advance of putting in this much time, I probably would have looked closer to Joomla instead of WordPress, seems it can work both ways. Too bad there are not clear blogs on what WP doesn’t do.

Hi Kevin.

I’m sorry you were bothered by his answer. We don’t think you’re stupid for wanting that. I agree that a single sign-on feature between sites in a multisite network makes a lot of sense, if I were setting up a network I’d look into how to achieve it myself.

It’s just that there isn’t much we can do about this limitation. It’s one imposed by WordPress itself and s2Member is not designed to touch it. We’re not familiat with the plugins that would let you do it, so we can’t give information about what they do or don’t. :/

My best advice in this regard would be to contact the developers of the plugins that are already working on how to alter this part of WordPress, since they’ll be the most experienced in it and probably already have a good solution for you, or can come up with a decent one.

I hope that helps!