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By Anthony Pero on
I have a client who is a fantasy author. Here's what we want to do. My question is the best way to approach this. Is a multi site setup the way to go, or some other way I haven't figured out yet?
Basically, the client wants to have an author site, which would contain his blog and information about him and his works. Then, he wants to set up community sites for each of his "worlds" that he writes in. Each of these would have their own domain. So, if my client was Robert Jordan (god rest his soul), then he would have:
robertjordan.com
wheeloftime.com
conanchronicles.com
fallonchronicles.com
The last three sites would be three separate community websites, covering the three major series he's done (obviously this is just an example, not the actual client.)
Here's the sticky part: Even though there are three separate communities, we only want one log-in for the whole family of sites, so people are only getting one newsletter and such. So, is his possible? Is it even a good idea? Is there a reason to keep the communities separate? Also, this needs to be set up so that as the author writes in new worlds, new communities can be created with new domains.
Is this a job for the multi site feature of drupal? I've only used drupal on single domain installations before, so I'm not sure how to proceed.
Anthony Pero
Comments
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yes, multisite can be used for this. However, to share logins each site must be installed in the same DB using prefixes. May also have to investigate the single signon module.
I think I'd do it a bit different though.
I use the domain module and set my worlds up using subdomains rather then completely seperate domains. world1.maindomain.com world2.maindomain.com, author.maindomain.com so on so forth.
the full domains can be redirected if necessary to each subdomain.
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My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
Thanks
Can I ask what the benefit is to using subdomains? I think the client would like to see the full domain for each site, but if there's a really good reason (like, it'll save him a thousand dollars in my frustration having to set it up with a full domain ;), then maybe he'll bend on that.
Also, how easy would it be to have different themes for each site if it was subdomains instead of full domains, or doesn't that matter? As I stated, I've only ever used drupal as a single installation, so sorry if some of these questions seem newbish.
Thanks again,
Anthony Pero
Anthony Pero
Project Lead
Virtuosic Media
http://www.virtuosic.me/
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no benefit to subdomains. Chalk it up as personal preference.
With regards to themes, each site would have its own theme, as each site would also have its own admin settings. reading the settings.php file will explain to some degree how to share the users table so that you can have sahred users across the web of sites, which will allow for single sign ons. I assure you that since this is your first multisite you will no doubt have to take your time and be prepared to get a headache or three.
I've opted away from multisites for anything other than personal websites, for a single reason. The Database getting too large and too many querries on one DB because each and every multisite will have to share a single DB.
If your client is on a shared server, this should certainly be discussed thoroughly. You should also do more to familiarize yourself with the exact process by setting up a multisite and learning exactly what needs to be done and where bottlenecks may be created.
I've never found a way to share the users table for single signons across multiple databases.
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
Thanks!
Thanks for the warnings! They will be given due consideration. What about using open-id for drupal 6? This would work to the same effect right? Then, as far as the newsletters go... Well, I'm not sure how to handle that yet.
Anthony Pero
Anthony Pero
Project Lead
Virtuosic Media
http://www.virtuosic.me/
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I've yet to work with D6 in a live environment and I've never used the OpenID module that is also available for Drupal 5
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My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
Was reading a drupal book...
and I came across an option that may work for sharing users. It said you could set up each site so that instead of sharing tables in a database, each site could have it's own database, and you could create an entirely separate database for the thing you want to share. It was referring to the location module, but this could be used for the user tables as well, right?
You could set up a separate user database, and change the settings.php file to read the user tables from that database, couldn't you? Would that make the profiles and profile info identical across the multisite?
Anthony Pero
Anthony Pero
Project Lead
Virtuosic Media
http://www.virtuosic.me/
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To be honest, I've never tried too hard. My first try @ using seperate databases nad sharing tables did not work. The more I read the more often I read that to share users, sessions (signons) was to haev both installs in the same DB.
If there is a way to share these tables correctly over seperate databases, I've never found it.
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My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
...
You can share user tables across sites. It does add maintenance overhead to updates and such. It's not common but there are one or two approaches documented in the handbooks.
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Yup, this is achievable
Yup, this is achievable through the multisite feature of Drupal. I have 3 sites set up using this with shared users across all 3 but with unique content for each site. Although it's not needed, the single sign on module is of help as users will only have to sign on to one site to be signed onto the rest instead of having to sign on individually to each site.