Behind The Blog

Given WordPress MU comes by default prepared to be used on a site where you might allow anyone to sign up for an account, the security posture taken by WPMU is understandably high. For instance, only certain types of embeddable objects are allowed by default. As I have written about previously, there are ways to extend the list of embeddable objects but the problem is that people out on the Internet are naturally creating new services with new types of embeds. Maintaining a list of supported embed objects was getting rather tedious.

So I stopped. Since we know exactly who will have an account on this WPMU server, and we very definitely do not let just anyone in, I’ve gone ahead and installed and activated the “Unfiltered MU” plugin. I just followed the installation instructions and dropped it in my mu-plugins directory and… ta da… the problem with embeds went away.

Now there is the detail that authors need to have at least “Editor” status within WordPress MU for the Unfiltered plugin to let their embeds through, but that’s okay because, again, we have a very closed WPMU environment where I know precisely who will be writing on each blog. So for the people who need embeds, I have no issue setting them up with “Editor” access.

Anyway, it’s very great that Automattic makes the “Unfiltered MU” plugin available – and it’s great to no longer have to worry about whether or not new embeds will work within our blog site.

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4. Tip: How to modify WordPress MU to allow embed objects (specifically for SlideShare)
5. How to allow the upload of newer file types not listed in WordPress

Tags: Plugins, WordPress, wordpressmu, WPMU