Advice on setting up multiple sites

[marius]

Hi all,

I want to separate the content of my website to two domains, one private/personal and one professional. I could use the multiple sites extension and stuff, but I don't know how to set up the domains for this (can they point to the same host? what happens to pages I created outside of PivotX?). Does this mulitple site mode mean that I have to log in to pivotx twice if I want to both update the one and the other site?

I think I can also set up a second domain for the same host and have it point to a subdirectory of the public_html folder (at domeinbalie.nl). But then, how do I get that to work? Would symbolic links be a good solution?

The first thing I need to do is to have the second domain point somewhere, but where? Sites are now on separate hosts: http://www.beteredingen.nl (old host, will be taken offline at the end of the year) http://www.mariusthart.net (new host, should have both parts of the now identical websites, before the end of the year). Here's an example of a page not managed by PivotX (the reason: it's purpose is to run some big javascript thing, which I don't want to do in PivotX): http://www.mariusthart.net/specials/kauffman/kauffman.html. I have several such pages and want to keep them, without really changing them.

All advice and tips are welcome!

Marius.

[hansfn]

I assume you have read our documentation - Running multiple websites in one PivotX installation (multi-site)? This works very well - I use it all the time. You can still keep old static pages. Yes, you need to log into each site separately.

[marius]

Hi Hans,

Thanks very much. I have indeed read the documentation, I was actually browsing the documentation to see if there already was a better solution to my problem than what I'd do using a 0.x or 1.x version of Pivot (back when I was young). It seems like this is it. However, I have no experience with having multiple domains pointing to one host. The documentation doesn't say much about that, which makes sense as that is not something PivotX does. But it does leave me a little puzzled about how to go about all this.

What requirements does PivotX have for this to work? My host offers the possibility to point a 'sub-domain' to a folder on the main domain's public html tree. But it seems like that is not what PivotX needs, right? So both domains should point at the same folder of the host, and PivotX figures out the rest? That's what I read between the lines, anyway. (Just want to check before I waste money.) In addition, it looks like I would have to split my databases of posts by hand if I don't want to loose any, is that correct? Luckily, it's not so much yet. Lastly, I would only have to set up this extra folder structure for one of the domains, right? Or for both?

Thanks!
Marius.

[hansfn]

OK, this is late reply, but here I go.

Yes, many hosters point subdomain to a subfolder. You are correct that in the setup described in the documentation all sites point to the same folder. However, I think the subfolder setup will work if the subfolder is just a symlink to the root/real folder. (I haven't tested.)

Regarding the database. I guess the simplest approach is to copy you current database to a new database (using for example phpMyAdmin) and then go into the different sites and delete entries.

[marius]

Another late reply... Thanks! This is exactly what I needed to know!

[marius]

Hi Hansfn,

Another question. I finally got around to trying to set all this up. I copied the db and templates directories to the correct location (mariusthart.net/pivotx/sites/www.beteredingen.nl/..) and created an empty images directory there as well. It doesn't work yet, though, and it looks like there are two things I could do:

1: Create a DocumentRoot. I have no idea where that goes or how to do it, but a little Googling reveals this is from the httpd.conf file (right?). I'm not sure I have rights to that file on my hosting.
2: Do the same with all the files for the main host... and maybe remove the originals?

Or maybe I need to do both?

Thanks,
Marius.

Edit: OK, something seems to be happening now... how can I login to PivotX to edit posts on any of the specific sub-domains?

[hansfn]

Just ask your hoster - it depends on the hosting solution you have. The point is that all domains/subdomains should point to the same directory / have the same document root. When that is working, you access PivotX the normal way for each domain - example.org/pivotx.

[marius]

Hi Hans,

Thanks. I can log into PivotX when going to my main domain's login: (mariusthart.net/pivotx) but when I go to the secondary domain's login (beteredingen.nl/pivotx) I simply get the front page of the main domain. In fact, whatever path I type after the secondary domain, all it will ever show is the front page of the primary domain. Well, not really, some posts seem to be missing, but I can't get a login. Is that normal?

Cheers,
Marius.

[hansfn]

Please read my post again. Contact your hoster to correct your setup. (beteredingen.nl is just a frame pointing to mariusthart.net - look at the HTML source code.)