Knowledgebase
How to configure and manage the network settings in WordPress multisite
The network admin panel of a WordPress multisite installation has a whole section with settings that are used specifically for configuring and managing different aspects of your multisite network. In this article we'll briefly go over these settings. To access and configure them, log into the network admin panel and go to Settings menu>Network Settings sub-menu. On the page that opens the options are divided into several sections.
Operational Settings
In this section there are options for the network name and for the network admin email. You can change the network name to whatever you want. It's not displayed to visitors on the frontend. The network admin email is the email address on which notification emails for newly registered users and sites are received. This is also the email address that's shown in the From field of messages with login credentials that are sent to newly registered users.
Registration Settings
With the options in this section you can allow users other than super admins to add new sites to the network, you can allow frontend user account registration, you can ban names that can be used as names of sites in the network, and you can limit or ban emails that belong to certain domains so that they cannot be used for registering user accounts.
The option Allow new registrations is set to Registration is disabled by default. This means that sites can be added to the multisite network only by super admins from the network admin panel, and that visitors on the frontend of any of the sites in the network are not allowed to register themselves as users. If you mark the radio button User accounts may be registered, then frontend user account registration will be enabled. If you mark the button Logged in users may register new sites, registered users (regardless of their user role) will be allowed to add new sites to the network. If you mark the radio button Both sites and user accounts can be registered, you'll allow frontend user account registration and you will also allow registered users to add new sites.
The Registration notification checkbox is marked by default. This means that when a new user is registered or a new site is added by a registered user, a notification email message will be sent to the network admin email. The checkbox Add New Users is unmarked by default meaning that administrators of sites in the network cannot add new users; only super admins are allowed to do that. If you want to allow site admins to add new users, mark this checkbox. In the text field Banned Names you can list names that cannot be used as site names. This applies to sites added by registered users. Sites added from the network admin panel are not affected by this list.
If you put a domain name (e.g. hotmail.com) in the text area labeled Limited Email Registrations, then new users can be registered only with email addresses that belong to the listed domain. You can list more than one domain; put each on a new line. If you put domain names in the Banned Email Domains text area, then new users cannot be registered with an email that belongs to one of the banned domains.
New Site Settings
From the settings in this section you can change the default welcome email messages, you can also edit the text of the sample post, page and comment that are published automatically on new sites.
In the text area Welcome Email you'll see the email message that's sent to admins of newly added sites in the multisite network. If you want to you can edit the text of the email. In the text area labeled Welcome User Email you can edit the email message that's sent to newly registered users.
In the text areas First Post, First Page and First Comment you can edit/type respectively the sample post, static page and comment that are automatically published on newly added sites in the network. By default, the text areas for the page and the comment are empty which doesn't mean the a sample page and comment are not published. It simply means that they'll have no content. In the text field First Comment Author you can type a name to be shown next to the sample comment. If you leave it empty, the name of the author will be Anonymous. If you type an URL address in the text field First Comment URL, then the name of the comment author will be a link to the specified address.
Upload Settings
Using the settings in this section you can specify the allowed file types, you can limit the total size of uploaded files, and you can set the maximum allowed size for a single file.
If you want to set a limit for the total size of uploaded files, mark the checkbox next to Site upload space and type the allowed space in the text field that's provided. This is the quota for each site; it's not the total space for the whole network. In the text field Upload file types you can list the file types that are allowed. If a file type is not in the list, then files from that type cannot be uploaded. In the text field Max upload file size you can specify the maximum allowed size for a single file. If a file exceeds that size, the upload won't be allowed.
Menu Settings
Here you'll find a checkbox labeled Plugins. It's unmarked by default. This means that admins of individual sites in the network cannot activate/deactivate plugins. This can be done only by super admins. If you want to allow each admin to activate/deactivate plugins from the Plugins section of the admin panel which they manange, mark this checkbox. When it comes to installing plugins this can be done only from the network admin panel.
If you make any changes don't forget to click on the Save Changes button.
For screenshots and more details check out the tutorial on how to manage the network settings in WordPress multisite.
You can also check out the other WordPress multisite tutorials: