Version 2

Configuring multisites

Created by: Lester Caine, Last modification: 17 Jul 2008 (08:14 UTC) by Lester Caine
There are various legacy pages relating to MultisitesPackage, but no easy 'How To' guide to help set you up.
Just to keep things tidy in the process the following pages could probably be removed but are retained for historic information at present -
((Multisite (Teamsite) Configuration)) (OK that will not link but it's old anyway) and brainstorming multisite support.

Web server configuration

Following the notes on the admin page for multisites I established that I had to set up separate virtual hosts for each domain extension I am going to use. Not too difficult for a few separate sites, but this could be difficult if many are involved.
For various reasons I've got both windows and linux web servers running and to add to the fun, the SUSE and Mandriva linux servers have somewhat different methods of handling Apache setup. Since the remote server is running SUSE linux and has all of the DNS management, that is where I am currently setting things up, and actually it is a lot less problematic there.
The setup has Apache2 installed (installation and configuration notes will follow at some point), and configuration for this uses /etc/apache2 as its location for configuration. Virtual hosts are already configured in this setup ( unlike Mandriva where I will need to do a bit more work tidying up ) and there is a sub directory /vhost.d which has .conf files for each virtual host. There are templates for normal and ssl hosts, but at present I only have the normal access working. Having created and tested an vhost.enquirysolve.co.uk.conf file, all I had to do is duplicate the file as vhost.cust.enquirysolve.co.uk.conf and change the ServerName line to include the cust. information.
( Remember to restart apache to pick up any new files - /etc/init.d/apache2 restart for SUSE )
This will allow us to create a set of target sites that can be used by multisites.

bitweaver configuration

The multisites admin has two pages. The settings panel allows you to configure 'Per Site' content and add a separate tab to edit pages to allow setting these. This is currently conflicting with ProtectorService which is designed to provide the same service, and is duplicating code. This is an area that needs tidying up next.
There is an option to display 'Number of members' but I have not established yet WHAT this relates to.
The second page - Edit Sites - allows the identification of the sites configured in apache to be added and accessed. There are three tabs, the first of which displays a list of the configured sites and has links to allow data to be edited or an entry deleted. Simply create a new site by adding it's ServerName details and follow up with a description of that site. Save Settings will create the entry, but it is worth looking at the other two tabs to change the site title, and search details for this 'virtual' site, along with the home page and theme to use.
Currently I'm having problems with getting the virtual sites to home to the their correct group home page
Follow up - of cause the problem here is that the users are not logged in so perhaps THAT should happen first

To be investigated

I am not sure yet how all this is going to interact. For this particular site users are fairly well ring fenced, so they will only need to see their own content along with any 'anonymous' content, but it may be that we need to break things down further within a customer area, so that registered 'customer' users will see their on line help documentation, but in addition editor 'customers' need to be able to see and edit additional material ring fenced in that area.
( protector *IS* providing the same function, but would be used on a local secure site to prevent access to material between different groups of users )

Integration quetsions

One of the areas I'm still a little unhappy with is groups, but not those provided by the GroupsPackage which provides yet another way of managing grouped content. The thing that seems to be missing at present is the filtering of structure content to be visible to the group that it is assigned to. The listing of all possible galleries and the like in other packages needs a little work, so that only galleries accessible by a particular group of users are displayed. Not sure yet if multisites correctly handles this area. On the to do list.
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Date/CommentUserIPVersion
17 Jul 2008 (14:06 UTC)
Expand on multisites/protector options
Lester Caine81.138.11.1364
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