I've been trying to get help on moving a Multi-Site setup to a new version using a whole new Master site, but I'm not getting a lot of responses.

How about this question:

Suppose I want to move my previously "Slave" site to a full Joomla website. I see that I have a number of symbolic links, but I'm not exactly sure how to delete them. I'm afraid deleting them will delete the whole folder they are linked to.

What I want to do is systematically remove Multi-Site from my website and replace the symbolically linked files with actual files.

Can anyone guide me on this?

-- John Kiernan, OA Region 2

Remove a symbolic link is not critical as they can be rebuilt.
A symbolic link is like a short cut or an alias that is a reference to the physical file or directory.
So delete a symbolic link does not remove the physical file or folder.

If you want to replace all the links by the physical file (or folders), you can remove all the links and change the JMS template rule to replace "Symbolic Link" action by the "copy" action
So that when you will Open/Save the slave site into JMS manage site, this will perform a copy of the files and folders instead of creating a symbolic link.

If you want to convert a slave site under JMS into an independent joomla, the other procedure consist in a backup of the master that you restore somewhere.
Once you have the master restore somewhere else, you can uninstall JMS and replace the "configuration.php" of your master by the "configuration.php" of your slave site.

Becarefull when you have specific folders like /images or /templates to replace the master directories by the slave site one.

I'm sorry... I am trying to follow this, but I am not sure what you mean.

Under my "master template" (I only have one), I have changed all of the files and folders in the "folders and files" tab to say either "ignore" or "copy". I have NO "symbolic link" dropdowns any more.

I then went back into the slave sites and saved the site again, hoping it would copy the folders and delete the symbolic links, but it does not.

I am afraid to try to delete the symbolic links, as I'm afraid I might actually be deleting the folders the symbolic links are pointing to.

HELP!

-- John

If you just have "ignore" and "copy" this mean that you don't have the symbolic link allowed (probably working on a Windows platform).

If your current setting is "ignore", and that you didn't setup the deploy folder (or field nor present), then you can do a backup of your master website directory as it is the same (ignored) for the slave site.

If you have ignored and copy action, this mean that you can NOT have any symbolic link on your server OR that you changed your server configuration to forbid the symbolic links.

If you have symbolic link present, then you have to fix your server configuration to restore the symbolic link functionality.

See also the tutorial video 7 to check the symbolic links.
Do not delete the symbolic link if you are not able to rebuilt them (as the action are just "ignore" and "copy".

If you want that we have a look on your server and do the copy for you, this is also possible with our billable support that you can order at
www.jms2win.com/en/joomla-multisite?page...35&category_id=1

What I am trying to do is REMOVE Multi-Site from our server and put the files back the way they need to be.

How do I REMOVE a symbolic link when all that I see when I look at the website's files via File Manager (CPanel) are the files themselves?

Can you possible give me a "step-by-step" approach on how to take a slave site to a regular Joomla site?

Thanks in advance!

-- John

If the files and folders that you see in cPanel are really physical files and folders then you question does not make senses.

If the files and folders are Symbolic Link then you have to fix the potential issue that you have if the JMS "setting" menu tells you that symbolic link is forbidden.

As I already told you, if you want to replace the symbolic link by a physical copy, you need to update the JMS template rule to replace the action "symbolic link" by "copy".

When done, you can delete manually the symbolic links present in you website and perform a "manage site" Open slave site definition and Re-save slave site defintiion to let the JMS template "copy" action re-applied on your slave site.

I hope this is more clear.