The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

If you are working on developing a custom theme for wordpress the easiest way to do that is to set up a local wordpress install on your local computer.  This is how you can set up a development WordPress Multisite environment on your Mac workstation. For PC users, you can visit this page for instructions:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network

A couple of recommendations:
1. Check with your IT department FIRST and outline any specific processes your department might have, as your process may vary.
2. Read all of these steps first and write down any questions you might have or issues you think you will have to resolve before you set up ANY environment on your workstation.

1. Install a virtual machine on your Mac if you don’t already have one- this guide walks through VMWare’s Fusion.
   -  This avoids turning your workstation into a server- which would require that you register for the Qualys scanning service (https://its.unc.edu/service-catalog/vulnerability-scanning-service/) and register/successfully complete the System Administration Initiative training.
   - ITS recommended VMWare- their customer service department confirmed that Fusion is their only product that will work with Macs.
2. Purchase a license for VMware Fusion 5 (Professional)  via their website or here: http://store.apple.com/us/product/H9733LL/A/vmware-fusion-5?fnode=6b:
   - Choose the Academic option to purchase it at a discounted rate.
   - Note: Since they do not waive the tax online, call them via customer service, and request a tax-exempt form.
   - Fax them three pages (and keep these pages along with fax confirmation for your records!):
   1. The completed tax-exempt form
   2. The receipt of the purchase
   3. The University’s Tax Exempt letter (http://financepolicy.unc.edu/n/CCM3_021018)
   - They will refund the tax amount.
3. Download, Install, and Register Fusion.
4. Set up the virtual machine (this is what Fusion looks like):
   
5. Decide what virtual operating system you are going to use.
6. Resolve Licensing issues based on that choice (The following licensing requirements were confirmed through the UNC Software office: 962-2000):
   - Windows platform: no additional license required.
   - Mac OS platform: additional license IS required because the license is valid per installation, even if additional installations are virtual.
7. Download and install MAMP (http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html)
8. After installation:
   - Open the program (MAMP)
   - Click on Preferences
   - Click on the tab named Ports
   - Change your MySQL port to 3306
   - Click OK
   
9. Create your MySQL database for WordPress:
   - Click on the Open Start Page button on MAMP (this will open a page)
   - Click on the phpMyAdmin link at the top of the page
   - In the middle of the page, you will see a field that says “Create New database”
   - Enter a name, click create.
   - Click on users (because you’re smarter than just using “root”!!)
   - Add your username and password
   
10. Download your preferred version of WordPress
11. Put it in the htdocs directory within MAMP (Applications/MAMP/htdocs/)
    
12. Within the WordPress files, there is a file called wp-config-sample.php – open it.
13. Edit wp-config-sample.php with your information:
    - The name of the database you just created
    - the username (the one you created in phpMyAdmin)
    - the password
    
    - to enable multi-site, add one more line right above the “Stop Editing” line:
    define(‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true);
    
14. Save the file AS wp-config.php
15. Next: find out what your machine’s name is: open System Preferences>Sharing. At the top, it will display the computer’s name.
    
16. Open up your browser and type in http://yourcomputernamehere.local.
    - Example: A computer’s name is oasismbp, so type in http://oasismbp.local
17. This will take you to the WordPress Setup page.
    - Enter a title for your network and an admin password
    - Log in
18. At this point, you will have to have to tell your Mac to allow you to view/edit hidden files, if you haven’t already done this for some other reason.
19. Open your Terminal
    - Type the following line:
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
    - Hit enter.
    - Next type:
    killall Finder
    - Hit enter again.
    - Note: If you ever want to change this back, just type this line into terminal again, except put FALSE instead of TRUE
20. Time to create your network! Go back to your browser, where you are logged into WordPress.
21. Click on Tools>Network Setup (if you don’t see the option to create a new network using SubDomains, something went wrong in the above steps)
22. Once you click through to create the network, WordPress will give you some instructions:
    - Adding additional code to the wp-config.php file
    - Adding additional code to the .htaccess file
    - Creating a directory for sub-site file uploads
    - Ignore any warnings about enabling wildcard sub domains (for now)
23. Finally, you will need to do one more step when creating new sites, because wildcard subdomains do not work on localhost.
    - Open up Terminal
    - Type the following line (note the space between nano and /private):
    sudo nano /private/etc/hosts
    - Hit Enter
    - You will then be prompted for your computer password- type that in and hit enter again.
    - Go to the bottom of the new text and add a new entry for whatever subdomain you will be using
    - Hit ctrl + X, then Y, then Enter
    
    
24. Once you have created this new entry in the hosts file and the site within WordPress, you should be able to visit the site and set it up however you want.