By Jerimee on

In this guide, http://drupal.org/node/53705 it seems like all you need to do to create a multi-site installation is install Drupla once, and then make new folders for each site in the sites folder. What do I do after that?

This is a site: http://www.ncdponline.org/_d6/

and I want this to be a site using the same code: http://www.ncdponline.org/_d6/sites/currituck/
and this: http://www.ncdponline.org/_d6/sites/duplin/
and this: http://www.ncdponline.org/_d6/sites/durham/

What do I do beyond merely creating the appropriate directories? Is there a guide for multi-site for Drupal 6? What are the issues involved in making several unrelated website share the same code?

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

a new settings.php file is suppose to go into each one and I don't believe you are setting up your folders correctly.

you would use subdomains or actual domains ie:

subdomains which is what I use in multisite installs go like:

sites/duplin.youriste.com
sites/durham.yoursite.com

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
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Jerimee’s picture

Jerimee commented

how does it matter if I rename the directories?

now I've got this: http://www.ncdponline.org/_d6/

(the directory "_d6" is where my fresh install of Drupal 6 is)

and I'm trying to create currituck.ncdponline.org by creating a directory "currituck.ncdponline.org" in sites?

http://www.ncdponline.org/_d6/sites/currituck.ncdponline.org

How is drupal going to know that my all but empty directory means that it should organize SQL tables back into a coherrent site?

Is the fact that the code I'm trying to share (the "main" site) is "http://www.ncdponline.org/_d6/" as opposed to "http://www.ncdponline.org?" (http://www.ncdponline.org is drupal 5.3)

vm’s picture

vm commented

A) sub domains are setup on the server not through drupal.

B) it doesn't matter where you have the first installation of drupal is installed only that when the subdomain is called in the browser it can find it in the main sites sites folder.

Also note that if you have a site already in your public root, that drupal install will take over the subdirectories under it.

ie my multsites start with notihing in the root but the subdomain folders to avoid installing drupal installations INSIDE other drupal installations which is just a PITA.

hence my folder structure

public_html/main = my first drupal install
public_html/audio = my audio subdomain
public_html/blog = my blogging subdomain
public_html/dev = my development subdomain

now under public_html/main

public_html/main/sites/audio.mydomain.com
public_html/main/sites/blog.mydomain.com
public_html/main/sites/dev.mydomain.com
each of these folders have their own settings.php file

when setting each of these subdomains up on the server, I assign the docroot of the subdomain to the main folder. I do this so that when someone goes to subdomain.mydomain.com, drupal knows to look in public_html/main for the sites/subdomain folders and in turn connect to the DB set up in that subdomains settings.php file.

I suggest you read some more documentation in the documentation area of the handbook as well as some of the forum threads that discuss this in depth. It will take some playing with until you get it just right, considering you already have an installation in your public_root it may take you awhile longer then with a blank server account.

I highly suggest setting up a local server environement on your local machine so that you can get the hang of how this all works.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

Jerimee’s picture

Jerimee commented

now I actually have two site

http://dev.ncdponline.org/

and

http://ncdponline.org/

ncdponline.org is drupal 6.2

dev.ncdponline.org/ is a 42 byte html file living in a folder called dev in the http://ncdponline.org/sites/ directory

How do I get dev.ncdponline.org/ to hook up to the code that is powering ncdponline.org? Throwing a settings.php file in there doesn't do it. Do I need index.php?

How is Drupal going to know which database entries to give to dev and which to give to the main site?

vm’s picture

vm commented

the folder, inside the sites folder cannot be called just dev, it must be called dev.ncdponline.org.

so you have sites/dev.ncdponline.org
in that folder only a "fresh", "new" settings.php file will be included. no index.php, no nothing, including no html file.

so you then have sites/dev.ncdponline.org/settings.php

you will then point your browser to dev.ncdponline.org and install.php will run based on the "new" settings.php where you will enter your DB information so that drupal can install the necessary tables into your new DB or the same DB with table prefixes.

The above only works if your server knows exactly where to direct a browser call to dev.ncdponline.org, which I am assuming at this point it does, if the html file comes up when you point to dev.ncdponline.org.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

Jerimee’s picture

Jerimee commented

do I need to make a change to .htaccess in the public_html directory?

vm’s picture

vm commented

no. the rules in .htaccess will be followed for every site in s multisite install, just as the index.php will be used by each site so on so forth.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

Jerimee’s picture

Jerimee commented

There must be some kind of issue with my hosting provider (bluehost) then. Following the instructions in the documentation is totally not working, and my hosting provider wont allow me to create a subdomain whose root folder has periods in it (ie sites/dev.mysite.com)

Can the root folder of the subdomain be the same root folder of my main domain?

There's something big I'm missing here. Something so obvious that the documentation doesn't bother to describe. I'm going to check to make sure my computer is plugged in.

vm’s picture

vm commented

in order for a mutisite to work properly. The folder in sites, must be the eact same as the address of the site.

if your site is located at myhouse.mydomain.com
then you must have a sites/myhouse.mydomain.com folder

I don't understand why a host would disallow periods in a folder name but I guess it isn't impossible.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

Jerimee’s picture

Jerimee commented

According to this the root of the sub-domain IS the same root directory as the main domain:

http://cmsproducer.com/Drupal-Multi-site-Hosting-Multiple-Domains-Mirror...

Jerimee’s picture

Jerimee commented

As you can see, I've had numberous difficulties setting up a multi-site installation. I cannot tell if these difficulties are based on a basic misunderstanding of how subdomains and domain fowarding work, on how the SQL intersects with the PHP, how to configure the settings file and the directories, or if I am missing some piece of documentation.

More likely then not I'm having multiple issues that are preventing me from setting up the multi-site.

Do each of the sites in a multi-site installation share the same database, or do they each have their own separate database?

Below is the support ticket that I sent to my hosting provider. Once I am able to work out all my difficulties I'll write up a guide to setting up a multi-site on Bluehost servers.

I want to set up a number of websites that will all share the same core Drupal(php) code, but will each have different design and content.

This is supposed to be quite easy to do in Drupal. In fact the instructions (http://drupal.org/node/53705) suggest that all that it necessary is to create the correct directory structure and place a single php file in the right place.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be working. I've spent maybe an hour and a half on the phone with bluehost support and there seem to be a number of issues relating to directory names, domain names, and sub-domains.

To get a sense of the difficulties I am experiencing please see http://drupal.org/node/247615

1) does Bluehost have any problem if I create subdomains like dev.ncdponline.org and designate a directory named "dev.ncdponline.org" as the subdomain's root folder? Bluehost support has indicated that the periods in the directory may cause a conflcit.

2) do any Bluehost default settings interfere with a multi-site Drupal installation?

3) can Bluehost offer any suggestions or recommendations as to how to configure my hosting package, settings, directory structure, database, or code that will help me make some progress in my goal to host a multi-site Drupal installation on Bluehost servers?

Jerimee’s picture

Jerimee commented

I guess I should do this before I continue beating my head against the hosting wall: http://drupal.org/node/32715

Jerimee’s picture

Jerimee commented

But still no luck on the web server:

Here is my site: http://ncdponline.org/

Here is my subdomain that I'm trying to install as a multi-site: http://two.ncdponline.org/

The directory is named /public_html/sites/two.ncdponline.org and it has settings.php

$base_url = 'http://two.ncdponline.org'; // NO trailing slash!

$db_url is correct

The error I'm getting is Table 'ncdponli_two.access' doesn't exist query. Of course, it doesn't exist yet: 'm trying to run the install script. Do I need to do something special to get install to run?

The document root of subdomain two.ncdponline.org is public_html

Thanks for help; it's much needed. (I've been trying to do this for 3 weeks).

vm’s picture

vm commented

Please don't crosspost or create multiple threads where we have to answer the same question twice. see: http://drupal.org/node/255364 where I've already answered.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )