Multiple sites from one codebase as subdir of localhost

By Fluffy Convict on 16 Sep 2007 at 14:27 UTC

I'm using WinXP with XAMPP 1.6.3 (Apache 2.2.4 mod_rewrite enabled, PHP 5.2.3). I'm able to create symlinks by using Junction. I've installed Drupal 5.2 in C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\drupal52 and can access it via http://localhost/druapl52.

I am now trying to create two websites (localhost/site1 and localhost/site2) that run on the same codebase as my localhost/drupal52. So far, I have:

created C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\site1 and C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\site2 directories
created a settings.php file for each of the two sites in drupal in C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\drupal52\sites\localhost.test1 and C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\drupal52\sites\localhost.test2
created a database for both sites

editted C:\Program Files\xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf:

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost site1.localhost>
    DocumentRoot "C:/Program Files/xampp/htdocs/drupal52/"
    ServerName test1.localhost
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost site2.localhost>
    DocumentRoot "C:/Program Files/xampp/htdocs/drupal52/"
    ServerName test2.localhost
</VirtualHost>

editted C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts:

127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.0.1       site1.localhost
127.0.0.1       site2.localhost

If I now browse to http://localhost/drupal52, I get the website as expected. If I, however, browse to http://localhost/site1, I get a default apache site index:

Index of /site1

Name   Last modified   Size   Description[DIR]
----------------------------------------------
Parent Directory                             -
----------------------------------------------
Apache/2.2.4 (Win32) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.4 OpenSSL/0.9.8e mod_autoindex_color PHP/5.2.3 mod_perl/2.0.3 Perl/v5.8.8 Server at localhost Port 80

Obviously, the same happens when browsing to localhost/site2.

My questions are:

What Am I doing wrong?
What do I yet have to do to make this work?

I have reviewed several topics on this (i.e. LOCALHOST MULTI SITE INFERNO: Finally did it!, Using the same Drupal code base for multiple sites, Running multiple sites on a local PC (localhost) from a single codebase, using Windows and Multisite with drupal for dummies) but am not able to find the answers I need - some really confuse me as I do exactly what they say, but it doesn't work on my computer. Perhaps you can help me out? Any help would be greatly appreciated :-)

Comments

You mention junction, but

zeta ζ commented 16 September 2007 at 15:06

You mention junction, but not that you’ve used it for anything. You have mentioned two directories – C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\site1 and C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\site2 – I think both of these need to be links to C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\. See Multiple Drupal Sites under Windows

Creating symlinks doesn't make any difference

Fluffy Convict commented 16 September 2007 at 16:16

You're right that I mentioned being able to create symlinks, but that I haven't used it for anything, since I wasn't sure what symlink to create. Following your suggestion (junction C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\site1 C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\) doesn't make any difference - I still get the directory listing when browsing to localhost/site1... :-( Anybody...?

.exe

zeta ζ commented 16 September 2007 at 17:05

Doesn’t seem like you have created the symlinks:-

junction.exe C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\site1 C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\?
Did you get an error message?
Have you tried deleting the directories first?
Have you tried migrating to LinuxAMP? ;-)

No message at all

Fluffy Convict commented 16 September 2007 at 18:14

When I type the junction command, I don't get any form of message telling me the symlink has been created or not. Look at the command line below:

C:\Documents and Settings\Fluffy>junction.exe C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\site1 C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\

Junction v1.05 - Windows junction creator and reparse point viewer
Copyright (C) 2000-2007 Mark Russinovich
Systems Internals - http://www.sysinternals.com

The first usage is for displaying reparse point information, and the
second usage is for creating or deleting a NTFS junction point:

usage: junction.exe [-s] [-q] <file or directory>
       -q     Don't print error messages (quiet)
       -s     Recurse subdirectories

usage: junction.exe [-d] <junction directory> [<junction target>]
       -d     Delete the specified junction
       example: junction d:\link c:\winnt


C:\Documents and Settings\Fluffy>

If I first delete the directory C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\site1 and run the junction command, I get the exact same output as above: no error, but no confirmation either...weird?

The webserver I'm renting is LAMP-based, my own little PC / Mediacenter / Devbox is not :-)

Space – the final frontier.

zeta ζ commented 16 September 2007 at 23:08

The response of junction.exe indicates that it doesn’t understand the command, so it prints out some help for you.

The two arguments it expects are a directory and a target. Unfortunately you have given it four arguments – you have a space in the directory name “Program Files”. You need to ‘escape’ the spaces, maybe ‘%20’ would work (I’m a bit rusty on windows)

Thanks, that helped!

Fluffy Convict commented 17 September 2007 at 06:29

I downloaded Link Magic, a freeware program for creating junctions through a graphical interface. I now created a junction between c:\program files\xampp\htdocs\site1 and c:\program files\xampp\htdocs\drupal52. This is working...partially.

If I now browse to http://localhost/drupal52, the main page holds links like Create new account (linking to /drupal52/user/register)
when surfing to http://localhost/site1, this link becomes Create new account (linking to /site1/user/register), which is great!
but, when I click this link, all links on the next page are of the form /drupal52/rest/of/link, instead of /site1/rest/of/link

Any thoughts on why the junction is only working on the indexpage of te site and not for pages "deeper" in the site? I have configured my settings file correctly (defining http://localhost/site1/ as $base_url). Might it have to to with the .htaccess file in c:\program files\xampp\htdocs\drupal52? If so, how should I alter it?

[...]

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteBase /drupal52

  # Rewrite URLs of the form 'index.php?q=x':
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>

Not sure about mod_rewrite

zeta ζ commented 17 September 2007 at 16:02

I’m not sure about mod_rewrite but my guess is that RewriteBase /drupal52 is causing this: Have you tried without?

It now works!

Fluffy Convict commented 18 September 2007 at 17:14

Rewriting .htaccess into the following makes the magic happen:

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/drupal52/(.*)$
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /drupal52/index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/site1/(.*)$
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /site1/index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

  # etc. for each website...

How to achieve this?

Fluffy Convict commented 18 September 2007 at 17:41

I now have the following working:

http://localhost/drupal52 (dir on server: c:/program files/xampp/htdocs/drupal52) is where drupal is installed. c:/program files/xampp/htdocs/site1 has been symlinked to c:/program files/xampp/htdocs/drupal52, so that http://localhost/site1 uses the same codebase but a different database because of the settings file in drupal52/sites/localhost.site1.

What I would like to achieve now is for each website to have it's own files and images repository, like this:

htdocs
  |
  +-- drupal52
        |
        +-- includes
        |
        +-- modules // shared among all sites
        |
        +-- sites
        |     |
        |     +-- default
        |     |    |
        |     |    +-- files   // can be accessed via http://localhost/drupal52/files
        |     |    |
        |     |    +-- images  // can be accessed via http://localhost/drupal52/images
        |     |
        |     +-- localhost.site1
        |     |    |
        |     |    +-- files   // can be accessed via http://localhost/site1/files
        |     |    |
        |     |    +-- images  // can be accessed via http://localhost/site1/images
        |     |
        |     +-- localhost.site2
        |          |
        |          +-- files   // can be accessed via http://localhost/site2/files
        |          |
        |          +-- images  // can be accessed via http://localhost/site2/images
        |
        +-- themes             // shared among all sites, so accessible via
                               // http://localhost/drupal52/themes and 
                               // http://localhost/site1/themes, etc.

Notice that I have removed the files directory in htdocs/drupal52/files. This, because there will be no shared files among sites. Again, each site will have it's own repository.

Can this be achieved with Drupal configuration and / or rewriting the root's .htaccess?

Site-specific directories

zeta ζ commented 18 September 2007 at 22:46

Themes for all sites should go in sites/all/themes (README.txt in sites/all). I assume this is the purpose of that directory.

The files & images directories could be done with rewrite, but, depending on how you will use them, you could set-up admin » settings » file-system for each site to point directly eg. sites/localhost.site1/files for site1, & images could be a sub-directory of files.

HTH

Multiple sites from one codebase as subdir of localhost

Comments

You mention junction, but

Creating symlinks doesn't make any difference

.exe

No message at all

Space – the final frontier.

Thanks, that helped!

Not sure about mod_rewrite

It now works!

How to achieve this?

Site-specific directories

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