Hi,

1) I'm trying to put together a small community driven citizen-journalism Newsvine-style website so that registered users will have their own "Columns" (which are blogs in disguise) under the subomain username.example.com, where they can post their articles. I wonder if this is the right module? or do I need to look elsewhere?

2) I'm not a coder so I don't know how to patch Drupal core, or how to do the DNS wildcard. And quite frankly the idea of patching the core scares me. Is there a chance of a detailed step-by-step instruction about how to install subdomains... what to do and what to click and what not to click?

Please help...

Many thanks

Comments

setvik’s picture

setvik commented

re: #1) yes, it sounds like subdomain may fit the bill. Subdomain automatically generates subdomains for authors & their content using the authors name (e.g. bill.example.com or mary.example.com).

re: #2) Writing out a step-by-step guide for wildcard-dns & patching core would be possible but time consuming, and I think it's really important that you have a basic understanding of how wildcard DNS, subdomains in Apache, and patching Drupal core works. It will be critical if you want to:

* upgrade to future versions of subdomain
* upgrade to new 5.x versions of Drupal
* uninstall the subdomain module

To that end, here are some links that explain patching, apache subdomains, and wildcard dns

Applying patches:
* http://drupal.org/patch/apply

Subdomains in Apache (basically just involves setting "ServerAlias" to "*.example.com"):
* http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23
* http://steinsoft.net/index.php?site=programming/articles/apachewildcardd...

Wildcard DNS:
* There are domain management services that make it very simple (no-ip.com is the one i use and i am sure there are many more).
* It can be quite tricky to manually setup on your own server. If you're curious, do a google search on "Wildcard DNS". (it's briefly referenced in the steinsoft.net link above)

Thanks to the architecture of Drupal 6, the Drupal 6 version of subdomain will not require any patches to core making it a bit easier to install.

Hope this helps

setvik’s picture

setvik commented
Status: Active » Closed (fixed)