I have finally been able to duplicate the installation.
Here’s a relatively complete set of steps for guidance. This took me several hours to prepare and it can be easy to make a stupid error along the way. Just take it slow.
These steps are for WordPress MU 2.8.1, bbPress 1.0.1 and buddyPress 1.0.3.
1. Download and install WordPress MU 2.8.1
2. Install the “bbPress Integration” plugin version 1.0 via the “Plugins” -> “Add New” menu of your wordpress mu installation.
In the search box enter ‘bbPress Integration” and click “Search Plugins”.
Click the “Install” link for the “bbPress Integration” version 1.0 plugin.
Click the orange “Install Now” button.
Click the “Activate Plugin” link.
3. Download and install bbPress 1.0.1 in a sub-directory of your wordpress installation.
I chose the sub-directory “/forums/”.
4. Load up the bbPress installation script by going to http://<yourdomain>/forums/
5. Click “Go to step 1”.
6. Enter the database name, database user and database password that you used for your wordpress installation.
You will not usually need to click “Show advanced settings”.
7. Click “Save database configuration file”.
You should see a message “Your settings have been saved to the file bb-config.php. You can now continue to the next step.”
8. Click “Go to step 2”.
9. Next you add the integration settings. This is the important part!
– click “Add integration settings”
– click “Add cookie integration settings”
– you will be presented with a list of eight text entry fields
– the first two are for your wordpress and blog url. For each of these enter your exact urls. I just used the same value for each. They need to commence with http://
– for all the cookie values just enter “COMMENT OUT”. These will become reference points in the bbpress config file for later.
10. Click “Add user database integration settings”. This step is also important!
Leave the existing value in the “User database table prefix” field.
Enter the WordPress Primary blog id value “1” – THIS IS IMPORTANT.
11. Click “Save WordPress integration settings”
If all is well you should see this message.
Your WordPress integration cookie and database settings have been successfully validated. They will be saved after the next step.
Once you have finished installing, you should visit the WordPress integration section of the bbPress admin area for further options and integration instructions, including user mapping and the correct cookie settings to add to your WordPress configuration file.
12. Click “Go to step 3”.
– enter your site name
– enter your site url. I entered the url to the forums including the http://
e.g. http://bp.dev/forums/
– select the “admin” user for your wordpress installation
– enter a name for your first forum e.g. “Announcements”
13. Click the “Save site settings” button
14. Click the “Complete the installation” button
15. You should see a screen indicating installation has completed.
– click the “Show installation messages” option. Scroll through and see of any errors are reported.
16. At this point you should be able to login to your bbpress installation with your wordpress admin username and password.
17. Login to bbPress
18. Click the “Admin” link to go to the admin screen
19. Go to “Settings” -> “Writing” and enable XML-RPC publishing protocol (this is needed by buddyPress)
20. Go to “Settings” -> “Discussion” and enable pingbacks (I think this is needed by buddyPress ….?)
21. Go to “Users”
22. Go to “Settings” -> “WordPress Integration”
Set the mapping of bbPress roles to WordPress users roles
For the WordPress Administrator role select “bbPress Key Master”.
For all the others select “bbPress Member”.
Click “Save Changes”
23. Login to WordPress MU as the admin.
24. Go to “Plugins -> Add New”
25. Enter “bbPress Integration” and click “Search Plugins”.
– you should see “bbPress Integration” 1.0 listed
– click “install”
– click the orange “Install Now” button
– click “Acrivate Plugin”
26. Go to “Settings” -> “bbPress Integration”
Ensure there is a full url for the bbPress forums entered.
Select WordPress type “WordPress MU”
Click “Save Changes”
Copy the values listed in the dark grey box at the bottom of your page into your clipboard. There will be four lines that look something like this:
define( ‘COOKIEHASH’, ‘da4672dda66fd60a6b80e420d32ef26c’ );
define( ‘COOKIE_DOMAIN’, ‘.bp.dev’ );
define( ‘SITECOOKIEPATH’, ‘/’ );
define( ‘COOKIEPATH’, ‘/’ );
Don’t worry – these values will be different for your installation.
Open wp-config.php in an editor and insert these lines immediately after the opening “<?php” line.
Whilst you have wp-config.php open, copy the authentication keys to your clipboard. They look like this:
define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘800345c011dfad9261cedec0a3d914ffa1b40d67b23b66e4809797ce728f0b80’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘5d6d3f657c9fb496e3f5488044fc174c238554a1b5347eb633ea8baecf0dcc7c’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘6749832494719d8217e06c233326cb86da9ec040b16f705156660e1642a5f0e8’);
define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ’87a5b149e95e0a13020541040353548eaf65b68452be91c685e96a7fbab685bc’);
define(‘AUTH_SALT’, ‘8ff197cc15f311c975bd14ce131e7872eb390706bd316f72435c081836d14f34’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_SALT’, ‘642683992ae38da46082bf9850ab90273deb7d5d1034baf80a3fd32871b5e04a’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_SALT’, ‘7c066b9c14bd558737b74b76c77f928e3612935832a6a47bd70842e118c947fa’);
They will be different for your installation.
Save wp-config.php
27. Open bb-config.php
Find the lines containing the Authentication Unique Keys. They will have the values “COMMENT OUT” if you followed the instructions above. Comment these lines out!
Insert the lines from your clipboard into bb-config.php below the lines you commented out.
You need to edit each line you inserted and prefix the name of each constant with “BB_”
After doing that, the lines will be something like:
define(‘BB_AUTH_KEY’, ‘800345c011dfad9261cedec0a3d914ffa1b40d67b23b66e4809797ce728f0b80’);
define(‘BB_SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘5d6d3f657c9fb496e3f5488044fc174c238554a1b5347eb633ea8baecf0dcc7c’);
define(‘BB_LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘6749832494719d8217e06c233326cb86da9ec040b16f705156660e1642a5f0e8’);
define(‘BB_NONCE_KEY’, ’87a5b149e95e0a13020541040353548eaf65b68452be91c685e96a7fbab685bc’);
define(‘BB_AUTH_SALT’, ‘8ff197cc15f311c975bd14ce131e7872eb390706bd316f72435c081836d14f34’);
define(‘BB_LOGGED_IN_SALT’, ‘642683992ae38da46082bf9850ab90273deb7d5d1034baf80a3fd32871b5e04a’);
define(‘BB_SECURE_AUTH_SALT’, ‘7c066b9c14bd558737b74b76c77f928e3612935832a6a47bd70842e118c947fa’);
Save the file and exit.
28. Clear cookies and Refresh for your domain. In Firefox you can clear cookies for a specific domain pattern.
29. Login to your wordpress installation as the wordpress admin user.
30. Assuming you managed to follow the setps above, If you go to your bbPress page you should find that you are logged in!
31. From WordPress Admin go to “Plugins” -> “Add New”
– in the search box enter “BuddyPress” and click “Search Plugins”
– find BuddyPress 1.0.3 in the list
– click “Install”
– click the orange “Install Now” button
– click “Activate Plugin”
32. BuddyPress is now installed. Follow the BuddyPress instructions for installing the themes to the correct locations and activate them.
33. In wp-admin go to “BuddyPress” -> “Component Setup” and check that the “bbPress Forums” component is enabled.
34. In wp-admin go tp “BuddyPress” -> “Forums Setup”
– ensure that the URL for the forums is entered
– ensure that the bbPress username and password details have been setup
– click “Save Settings”
35. Create a group with option selected for a forum.
36. Check that you can post topics in the group forum!
37. Take a break!
