I've setup a slave site and it has properly copied a folder for the site in the multisites folder but that index.php doesn't have any data in it and so it doesn't bring up the installer for the sites. I can't really understand from the manual how this is supposed to work but I thought I did it correctly.

I'm trying to create slave sites that share only extensions and templates and certain content items (or all) but are mostly separate.

My biggest thing that I need is the ability to only install updates on one master site - ultimately I need to have 25 or more slave sites setup easily and that are easy to update the base joomla installation for.

How are do most people get very far with this I see that my questions are pretty stupid but I don't see any place to get these answers.

I would happily post instructions on installing this once I get it done for my kindred stupid posterity but I have to figure it out myself first.

Thanks.

There are several questions.
Before replying to the other question that would be more easier for you to discover if you have the slave site working, we first have to check how you have setup the slave site

Have you followed the tutorial and the different steps.
It show how to install JMS, how to check the environment and how to check the creation of a slave site.
In your question, we don't have provided any technical information to know your environment that correspond to video 3 to 7.
Are you using a Unix platform or Windows platform ?
Do you have symbolic link available or not ?

When you say that index.php is empty perhaps this is a Symbolic Link that does not seems correct.
Normally the index.php must call the content of the joomla original index file.

So the first element is to check your environment.
Perhaps you can also check the permission of the directory and try understand why you have an "empty" index.php file.

In the video presented in the tutorial (that depends on your environment), when you have symbolic link, you can see the result expected.


Once you have identified the probably permission issue, then you can effectivelly create quickly your 25 websites based on JMS templates rule that you have to define.

If you want to share some extension, see the tutorial video 16
www.jms2win.com/tutorial#jms12x-16

maybe this helps: does your slavedomain redirects to your joomlafolder: it should be www.slave.com directing to www.yourdomain.com/joomla and not www.yourdomain.com/joomla/multisites/slave

at least in my case that did the trick! hope it helps

As you have not replied to the questions I have asked you, it is diffucult to give you an answer.

Whjch platform ?
Does the symbolic link is allowed ?
Do you have try create a slave site into a subdirectory, subdomain or different domain ?

You say redirect.
The word redirect is generally used by hosting server administration tool that let me suppose that you redirect a domain or a subdomain.
I told you that you can not use redirect mode in the hosting administration tool.

I have asked to start perform the test with a slave site into a subdirectory that avoid to use the hosting redirect mode and help me know if your problem is located in JMS or in the configuration of your hosting administration tool (cPanel, plesk, godaddy, ...)

In the tutorial video, we have presented both case (subdirectory and subdomain).
With subdomain (cPanel videos), we show how to setup the document root directory and how to deploy a slave site into a specific directory.

So the key element is first to know your environment.
Know if symbolic link is allowed
Know if you setup a domain, subdomain or subdirectory
Know which hosting server administration tool you are using