Multisite Users and 500 Server Errors

Discussion:

Jesse Friedman

2013-09-25 17:13:39 UTC

I have a rather large Multi-Site Network (over 500 websites). We host all
our clients sites and also write for them. So I'm in a weird situation
where I need to provide editors and writers "super admin" like access.

However I don't want those users to have super admin rights. We tried
using Extended Super Admins
http://wordpress.org/plugins/extended-super-admins/ which basically allows
you to take away capabilities from super admins which is nice but it
uncovered a flaw.

When you're a user on more than 50 or so sites on a WordPress network, the
server often fails at trying to serve up pages, especially
/wp-admin/network/users.php and wp-admin/network/sites.php, causing a 500
Server Error. This isn't a problem for true Super Admins, because they
aren't technically users on any site.

The ESA plugin mentioned above makes you a user of every site you visit
(once you visit the site it makes you a user of that site so you can edit
the ESA options for that site) which if you have a small network is no big
deal. But eventually all my users end up getting 500 errors when the server
tries to identify all the sites they're a user of.

So I need help trying to figure out a workflow for my writers. They have
absolutely no reason to go into the Network area, edit sites, themes,
plugins etc... I trust all of them but at the same time it's just too much
access for them.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION

I'm thinking I could just keep a list of the writers in a file and hook
into all Network level saves and ask if user name == "johnd" do not allow
things to save. Then I can also user their username as a class in the body
tag and just use CSS and JavaScript to hide the entire dashboard.

Has anyone done anything like this?

Does anyone have a better solution?
--
thanks

*jesse friedman*
jes.se.com *
*
Book: Web Designers Guide to WordPress -
http://wdgwp.com/onamazon<http://wdgwp.com/onamazon>
Twitter: @professor <http://twitter.com/professor>
Facebook: Like<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jesse-Friedman/204793299545174>

Mika A Epstein

2013-09-25 17:43:36 UTC

Permalink

What capabilities do they need that they don't have?

You say they don't need to be able to edit themes and plugins, but what
DO they need to do? :)

September 25, 2013 10:13 AM
I have a rather large Multi-Site Network (over 500 websites). We host all
our clients sites and also write for them. So I'm in a weird situation
where I need to provide editors and writers "super admin" like access.
However I don't want those users to have super admin rights. We tried
using Extended Super Admins
http://wordpress.org/plugins/extended-super-admins/ which basically allows
you to take away capabilities from super admins which is nice but it
uncovered a flaw.
When you're a user on more than 50 or so sites on a WordPress network, the
server often fails at trying to serve up pages, especially
/wp-admin/network/users.php and wp-admin/network/sites.php, causing a 500
Server Error. This isn't a problem for true Super Admins, because they
aren't technically users on any site.
The ESA plugin mentioned above makes you a user of every site you visit
(once you visit the site it makes you a user of that site so you can edit
the ESA options for that site) which if you have a small network is no big
deal. But eventually all my users end up getting 500 errors when the server
tries to identify all the sites they're a user of.
So I need help trying to figure out a workflow for my writers. They have
absolutely no reason to go into the Network area, edit sites, themes,
plugins etc... I trust all of them but at the same time it's just too much
access for them.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
I'm thinking I could just keep a list of the writers in a file and hook
into all Network level saves and ask if user name == "johnd" do not allow
things to save. Then I can also user their username as a class in the body
tag and just use CSS and JavaScript to hide the entire dashboard.
Has anyone done anything like this?
Does anyone have a better solution?

--
Mika A Epstein (aka Ipstenu)
http://ipstenu.org | http://halfelf.org

Jesse Friedman

2013-09-25 18:07:51 UTC

Permalink

Mika, thank you for taking the time respond

They just need to be able to access all sites. They ghost write for all of
our clients. We have 500+ sites now and grow by 10 a month. It's impossible
to manage user access by giving editors an editor role in each and every
site.

The other issue with that, is as I mentioned causing major server issues.

Jesse

Post by Mika A Epstein
What capabilities do they need that they don't have?
You say they don't need to be able to edit themes and plugins, but what DO
they need to do? :)

September 25, 2013 10:13 AM
I have a rather large Multi-Site Network (over 500 websites). We host all
our clients sites and also write for them. So I'm in a weird situation
where I need to provide editors and writers "super admin" like access.
However I don't want those users to have super admin rights. We tried
using Extended Super Admins
http://wordpress.org/plugins/**extended-super-admins/<http://wordpress.org/plugins/extended-super-admins/>which basically allows
you to take away capabilities from super admins which is nice but it
uncovered a flaw.
When you're a user on more than 50 or so sites on a WordPress network, the
server often fails at trying to serve up pages, especially
/wp-admin/network/users.php and wp-admin/network/sites.php, causing a 500
Server Error. This isn't a problem for true Super Admins, because they
aren't technically users on any site.
The ESA plugin mentioned above makes you a user of every site you visit
(once you visit the site it makes you a user of that site so you can edit
the ESA options for that site) which if you have a small network is no big
deal. But eventually all my users end up getting 500 errors when the server
tries to identify all the sites they're a user of.
So I need help trying to figure out a workflow for my writers. They have
absolutely no reason to go into the Network area, edit sites, themes,
plugins etc... I trust all of them but at the same time it's just too much
access for them.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
I'm thinking I could just keep a list of the writers in a file and hook
into all Network level saves and ask if user name == "johnd" do not allow
things to save. Then I can also user their username as a class in the body
tag and just use CSS and JavaScript to hide the entire dashboard.
Has anyone done anything like this?
Does anyone have a better solution?

--
Mika A Epstein (aka Ipstenu)
http://ipstenu.org | http://halfelf.org
______________________________**_________________
wp-hackers mailing list
http://lists.automattic.com/**mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers<http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers>

--
thanks
*
*
*jesse friedman*
jes.se.com *
*
Book: Web Designers Guide to WordPress -
http://wdgwp.com/onamazon<http://wdgwp.com/onamazon>
Twitter: @professor <http://twitter.com/professor>
Facebook: Like<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jesse-Friedman/204793299545174>

Mika A Epstein

2013-09-25 18:22:10 UTC

Permalink

How many editors do you have ghost writing?

If it's a matter of too many users on too many accounts, what about
making a Ghost Writer account, and giving JUST that account access to
all the sites? Then you tell people to log in as that account to write
posts. It's obviously not a perfect solution, as it removes
accountability per-person, but it may stop the server issue.

The other option would be to not have your ghost writers log in to WP,
but I doub't that'd be sustainable either.

Post by Jesse Friedman
Mika, thank you for taking the time respond
They just need to be able to access all sites. They ghost write for all of
our clients. We have 500+ sites now and grow by 10 a month. It's impossible
to manage user access by giving editors an editor role in each and every
site.
The other issue with that, is as I mentioned causing major server issues.
Jesse

Post by Mika A Epstein
What capabilities do they need that they don't have?
You say they don't need to be able to edit themes and plugins, but what DO
they need to do? :)

September 25, 2013 10:13 AM
I have a rather large Multi-Site Network (over 500 websites). We host all
our clients sites and also write for them. So I'm in a weird situation
where I need to provide editors and writers "super admin" like access.
However I don't want those users to have super admin rights. We tried
using Extended Super Admins
http://wordpress.org/plugins/**extended-super-admins/<http://wordpress.org/plugins/extended-super-admins/>which
basically allows
you to take away capabilities from super admins which is nice but it
uncovered a flaw.
When you're a user on more than 50 or so sites on a WordPress network, the
server often fails at trying to serve up pages, especially
/wp-admin/network/users.php and wp-admin/network/sites.php, causing a 500
Server Error. This isn't a problem for true Super Admins, because they
aren't technically users on any site.
The ESA plugin mentioned above makes you a user of every site you visit
(once you visit the site it makes you a user of that site so you can edit
the ESA options for that site) which if you have a small network is no big
deal. But eventually all my users end up getting 500 errors when the server
tries to identify all the sites they're a user of.
So I need help trying to figure out a workflow for my writers. They have
absolutely no reason to go into the Network area, edit sites, themes,
plugins etc... I trust all of them but at the same time it's just too much
access for them.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
I'm thinking I could just keep a list of the writers in a file and hook
into all Network level saves and ask if user name == "johnd" do not allow
things to save. Then I can also user their username as a class in the body
tag and just use CSS and JavaScript to hide the entire dashboard.
Has anyone done anything like this?
Does anyone have a better solution?

Jesse Friedman

2013-09-25 18:24:01 UTC

Permalink

We have about 12 writers, and 15 customer service reps. It's not so much
the issue of having too many users. It's that the one user can't be a user
on too many sites. Once we add 1 person to 50 plus sites we run into
issues. Somewhere around the 100 site mark we get 500 Server Errors for non
stop

Post by Mika A Epstein
How many editors do you have ghost writing?
If it's a matter of too many users on too many accounts, what about making
a Ghost Writer account, and giving JUST that account access to all the
sites? Then you tell people to log in as that account to write posts. It's
obviously not a perfect solution, as it removes accountability per-person,
but it may stop the server issue.
The other option would be to not have your ghost writers log in to WP, but
I doub't that'd be sustainable either.

Post by Mika A Epstein
What capabilities do they need that they don't have?
You say they don't need to be able to edit themes and plugins, but what DO
they need to do? :)

September 25, 2013 10:13 AM
I have a rather large Multi-Site Network (over 500 websites). We host all
our clients sites and also write for them. So I'm in a weird situation
where I need to provide editors and writers "super admin" like access.
However I don't want those users to have super admin rights. We tried
using Extended Super Admins
http://wordpress.org/plugins/****extended-super-admins/<http://wordpress.org/plugins/**extended-super-admins/>
<http:/**/wordpress.org/plugins/**extended-super-admins/<http://wordpress.org/plugins/extended-super-admins/>>which
basically allows
you to take away capabilities from super admins which is nice but it
uncovered a flaw.
When you're a user on more than 50 or so sites on a WordPress network, the
server often fails at trying to serve up pages, especially
/wp-admin/network/users.php and wp-admin/network/sites.php, causing a 500
Server Error. This isn't a problem for true Super Admins, because they
aren't technically users on any site.
The ESA plugin mentioned above makes you a user of every site you visit
(once you visit the site it makes you a user of that site so you can edit
the ESA options for that site) which if you have a small network is no big
deal. But eventually all my users end up getting 500 errors when the server
tries to identify all the sites they're a user of.
So I need help trying to figure out a workflow for my writers. They have
absolutely no reason to go into the Network area, edit sites, themes,
plugins etc... I trust all of them but at the same time it's just too much
access for them.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
I'm thinking I could just keep a list of the writers in a file and hook
into all Network level saves and ask if user name == "johnd" do not allow
things to save. Then I can also user their username as a class in the body
tag and just use CSS and JavaScript to hide the entire dashboard.
Has anyone done anything like this?
Does anyone have a better solution?

--
Mika A Epstein (aka Ipstenu)
http://ipstenu.org | http://halfelf.org
______________________________****_________________
wp-hackers mailing list
http://lists.automattic.com/****mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers<http://lists.automattic.com/**mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers>
<ht**tp://lists.automattic.com/**mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers<http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers>

______________________________**_________________

wp-hackers mailing list
http://lists.automattic.com/**mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers<http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers>

--
thanks

*jesse friedman*
jes.se.com *
*
Book: Web Designers Guide to WordPress -
http://wdgwp.com/onamazon<http://wdgwp.com/onamazon>
Twitter: @professor <http://twitter.com/professor>
Facebook: Like<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jesse-Friedman/204793299545174>

Sam Hotchkiss

2013-09-25 18:54:07 UTC

Permalink

Hey Jesse-- I'm having a similar issue with a very similar site network to
Astonish (the one I was telling you about at WC PVD), and am working on a
plugin which should be ready next week to help address.

I'll send it over when I've got it ready, maybe you can use it as a
starting point to set up what you need?
--
Sam Hotchkiss :: Principal :: Hotchkiss Consulting Group
122 Front Street, Second Floor, Bath, Maine 04530
P: 207.200.4314 :: F: 207.209.1365

Post by Jesse Friedman
We have about 12 writers, and 15 customer service reps. It's not so much
the issue of having too many users. It's that the one user can't be a user
on too many sites. Once we add 1 person to 50 plus sites we run into
issues. Somewhere around the 100 site mark we get 500 Server Errors for non
stop

Post by Mika A Epstein
How many editors do you have ghost writing?
If it's a matter of too many users on too many accounts, what about

making

Post by Mika A Epstein
a Ghost Writer account, and giving JUST that account access to all the
sites? Then you tell people to log in as that account to write posts.

It's

Post by Mika A Epstein
obviously not a perfect solution, as it removes accountability

per-person,

Post by Mika A Epstein
but it may stop the server issue.
The other option would be to not have your ghost writers log in to WP,

but

Post by Mika A Epstein
I doub't that'd be sustainable either.

Post by Jesse Friedman
Mika, thank you for taking the time respond
They just need to be able to access all sites. They ghost write for all