How to create 30 new sites from an export of a master site?

Question

I am an admin for a Wordpress multisite instance at a college.

I need to create 30 new wordpress sites, each for a similar course. The content is going to be copied from a "master" wordpress site that has some pages already set up.

Also, I need to add the same 20 people as administrators to each of these 30 new sites.

So far, I've been creating the new site, deleting the sample page and post, then importing the WXR file. Then I have to clean up with a little template customization and add 20 people as administrators.

Is there a better way to do this ? Even if I could create the new site in one step that would help me out.

Thanks

Answer 1

There are several options, you might want to combine them in some way. The list is in an increasing order of complexity and time that you will need to spend to implement it.

1. Backup plugins. They usually do a full backup of the site and let you restore it into different domain.

2. You can automate task like use registration and post deletion by writting scripts that use wp cli http://wp-cli.org/

3. You can write a plugin that does everything except for the content import. Add it you the mu-plugins directory of the wordpress software you are using to create the site.

For optimizing cost (time) /value of the solution it might be that option 2 is the best especially if you can script some things like database or directory creation.