By rjung on

A question for all the folks running Drupal with Site5 web hosting...

Does anyone know how well Site5's "Domain pointers" features play nice with multiple Drupal sites? That is, if I have my Drupal set up with multiple sites (www.firstsite.com and www.secondsite.com in my /sites directory), can I simply create Site5 domain pointers for www.firstsite.com and www.secondsite.com, point them to my Drupal installation, and have it work as expected?

I imagine this is a rather basic question, but I'm not particularly skilled on domain name configurations, and I don't know if Site5's domain pointers does any wonky voodoo that might mess with Drupal. Feedback from actual users would be preferred. :-)

Thanks,

--Robert Jung

⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.6.x

Comments

rjung’s picture

rjung commented

Hello? Anyone here?

--R.J.
http://www.electric-escape.net/

--R.J.

marcoBauli’s picture

marcoBauli commented

just installed my first multisite with Domain Pointer at Site5 and seems to work fine in it's basics.

Didn't test any deeper functions or particular special settings for now though..!

cheers,
Marco

jpduffy’s picture

jpduffy commented

I have been trying to do this without much success. I am also not getting much help from Site5 support. They know how to do it, I suspect, but they are adamant they do not support Drupal.

Can you post more detailed instructions or a road map of what you did?

Thank you,

jpduffy

marcoBauli’s picture

marcoBauli commented

On host settings page:
1) Set DNS1: dns.site5.com DNS2: dns2.site5.com for the new domain name.

In Multiadmin panel:
2) Click on the Edit button and change the "Max Pointer Domains" number to a number different from 0

In Netadmin panel:
3) Create my domain pointer (mysite.com) in Manage My Domains >> Domain Pointers >> add a domain pointer on the NetAmind panel of my main Drupal site.
Leave the "Point to my site's root directory" checkbox checked.
4) Edit the directory of the new pointer to the root directory where Drupal is installed (in my case www.mysite.com/drupal)
5) Create new database

In ftp space:
6) Create /mysite.com directory under /drupal/sites and set a settings.php file to reflect the new settings.

this should be all you need, hope it helps ;)

PS: note it might take up to 48 hours for the new dns to propagate!

jpduffy’s picture

jpduffy commented

I already have my DNS pointed as you suggest. So, propagation is not an issue.

I am going to give this a try. It sounds much easier than what I have been doing.

I guess I still have to figure out want the settings.php file should have, but I do not think that is my problem.

jpduffy’s picture

jpduffy commented

Could you please provide the settings for your settings.php file. I have set mine to point to the new database and the root directory to point to the subdomain. This gives me the mainsite's database. Not the new database.

Thank you

marcoBauli’s picture

marcoBauli commented

the Database URL format is the standard:

$db_url = 'mysql://username:password@localhost(leave localhost here)/databasename';

while you might need to uncomment the Base URL and pointing it to your domain name (not your root!):

$base_url = 'http://www.yourdomain.com'; // NO trailing slash!

other optional variables can be setted up, like site_name, or anonymous users...but are only the above 2 the fundamental ones

jpduffy’s picture

jpduffy commented

That was the answer! I had to point to www.domainname.com, not just domainname.com.

Did you do anything in the Rewrite area?

Thank you.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Their tech support seems to be hit or miss on who you get. Drupal really has nothing to do with what you're asking so that's a moot point. It took me a while to get useful help on domain pointing from them but, eventually, I got it working. I have 3 domains and a couple subdomains all working. It looks like someone else already did a step by step for you. I didn't do his step 2, but I'm on the cheapest plan that doesn't have multisite so that could be why.

Michelle

jpduffy’s picture

jpduffy commented

Thank you,

I think you have to do that, because, if you do not have any domain pointers authorized, the system will not let you create any. That is something Site5 Support does not tell you. You have to learn it the hard way or ask them to do it for you.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

I don't have the multiadmin pannel so I couldn't do that step even if I wanted to. :) I've got the basic plan where you only get one cPanel.

Michelle

jpduffy’s picture

jpduffy commented

I think you actually reach these features through the cpanel interface. However, it really should not make a difference. If you have a single site plan, there must be some things around that let you activate domain pointers unless they are automatically set to unlimited for single site plans.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

The front page says they're unlimited.

Michelle

marcoBauli’s picture

marcoBauli commented

about settings.php, it contains lot of instructions inside itself. Searching multisite+settings.php should give you more hints about it!

jpduffy’s picture

jpduffy commented

Please see the reply above. I guess I am a little lost with settings.php. I keep getting the main database, not the new database I created, even though I specified the new database.

Thank you

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

this is not domain pointers, but addon domains (to point at a subdirectory) must be done by site5 customer service. this confused me earlier.