There's an action hook in the set_role
function.
It's a matter of detecting if this is happening in the main site, and, if it does, get all blogs of the user and change all roles. More details in code comments.
Important note:
I'm just seeing that this hook is not looping by chance or luck, as the hook calls the same function where it happens. Need to confirm this.
add_action( 'set_user_role', 'sync_user_roles_wpse_91745', 10, 2 );
function sync_user_roles_wpse_91745( $user_id, $role )
{
// is_multisite() used just as precaution, this code is meant to Multisite only
if( !is_multisite() || !is_main_site() )
return;
// Initial data
$blogs = get_blogs_of_user( $user_id );
$original_blog_id = get_current_blog_id();
// Remove main site from affected sites
unset( $blogs[ $original_blog_id ] );
// Iterate through blogs of user
foreach ( $blogs as $blog )
{
// Work with another site
switch_to_blog( $blog->userblog_id );
// Grab all user info and update role as in main site
$site_user = get_user_by( 'id', $user_id );
$site_user->set_role( $role );
}
// Back to original main site
switch_to_blog( $original_blog_id );
}
I didn't know that, but the user ID remains the same across the network, in the tables wp_users
and wp_{$site_id}_users
.