By leonpyoder on

Is it considered a multisite installation if you are trying to set up one site on a subdomain of the actual domain, and one on the actual domain? Would you want the databases to be shared so that they would work for both sites, or would you first build it on the subdomain and export it later to the actual domain?

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

A multisite is simply multiple sites using the same codebase.

therefore you can have

mainsite and subsite1 using 1 single drupal install. either in seperate databases or sharing a single database with one install using prefixes.

Unless you have a specific reason for using a multisite install, I'd say avoid it.

peterx’s picture

peterx commented

You might have example.com and forums.example.com, and want one login for both sites. Read http://drupal.org/node/356351.

You might have cd.massiveshopexample.com and movies.massiveshopexample.com and ringtones.massiveshopexample.com and have one special shopping cart module for all sites. Multisite less all the sites share one copy of the add on module code.

petermoulding.com/web_architect

petermoulding.com/web_architect

leonpyoder’s picture

leonpyoder commented

All I want to do with my subdomain is use it as a test dummy site. Do you still think I need a multisite install?

vm’s picture

vm commented

"need" = no

can use = "yes"

my -dev sites are seperate from my production sites without using multisite installations. Though the -dev sites are mirrors of the proudction sites so that I can test module additons in an environment that resembles the production site.

I certainly wouldn't share a database in this situation as you won't be sharing any information between the two sites.

leonpyoder’s picture

leonpyoder commented

So let me try to understand...I'm a newbie. They would be two seperate databases each one exclusive to each site. You would work on one of them on the development site, then do the same thing and make the same changes on the production site, or could you make changes to the database on the development site, then copy it and put it into the production site.

vm’s picture

vm commented

I think you are making this much harder than it has to be.

A) develop the site in a subdomain (since this seems to be your preference)
B) once ready to push to production ie: main domain you don't need to do anything to the database, simply move the files to your public root.

now, later on if you find you want to add a module or something ie: whatever the case may be.

Export the live DB, import it to the dev site (creating a new DB for dev)
install module to see if it works as you expect it to with a DB as close to production as possible.

it works as you expect. Thats great

put live site offline, add module and set as you desire. There won't be any data for a new module so there will be no need to export the -dev database.

Sunshiney’s picture

Sunshiney commented

Misunderstood........Your post made me curious. To duplicate what you are doing on my local PC, standalone with XP running, would I have to install apache triad (my choice) and drupal every time I want to create a new dev site? Or do I use my current install of apache triad and then create drupal, drupal1, drupal2 directories for each drupal install? Sounds a whole lot easier than multisite config.

vm’s picture

vm commented

The easiest way is with subdirectories yes and I name them by project.

dman’s picture

dman commented

Seeing as I use 'dev' sites for, um, development - then I would not be sharing codebases with a working site.
But then - I develop themes and modules. If you never touch code, there's not much danger.

If you do want to work on testing modules and patches - then there are safe ways to do that, (use /sites/sitename/modules not /sites/all/modules or /sites/default/modules ) but you need to understand what's going on with that, and that takes a few goes. I'd avoid that on a live site.

.dan.
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.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards