I've made a lot of progress over the past few hours.

Have figured out that one needs to first create a template and then define the slave site in Site Manager in order to copy all users and extensions over.

However, I am running into a persistent JFolder creation problem. After searching through the forums, have changed permissions on the /administrator/components/com_multisites/multisites.cfg.php file to 777 but to no avail.

I am able to log into the backend and everything is there, and the database is properly duplicated but the frontend doesn't load: just an empty white page.

What is causing this JFolders problem and how can I fix it? Where exactly is this JFolders directory being created? At the root (public_html)? I have shell access (SSH) and can modify anything I need to. On the other hand, I've never had to use the FTP layer option before to install Joomla.

My server allows Symbolic Links (on) and I can create as many subdomains and databases as I want to.

The master installation is located at /home/oldtimer/public_html/blog2 and I want the slave installation to go into /home/oldtimer/public_html/guide3 (guide3 folder represents subdomain guide.middlekingdomlife.com.

Thanks much.

As you have identified, if you have a JFolder::create error, this mean that Joomla does not have the permission to do it.

The problem is to know which folder Joomla want to create that it can not.
Joomla does not display the path for security reason.
To know it, you perhaps need to add a debug trace to have this info.

Such problem is the symptom that you have different own of the files and folders on the disk.
So as you have a SSH terminal, you can easily check if the owner of joomla directories and the owner of /multisites or /administrator/components/com_multiistes are all identical.

Sometimes you have a owner for joomla that is the "FTP" user one or perhaps a root owner.
When you install an extension, you may have another user.
For example "apaches", "nobody", ...
This maybe the reason.

So you have to check the owner of the files and folders to have a consistent environment.

I have installed over 50 instances of Joomla without any permission conflicts so, obviously, this conflict is being caused by JMS Multisite.

As I have SSH access to my server, I checked all ownership attributes on both the master installation and slave installation: They are all set as they should be. In addition, access properties are set to either 755 or 777.

I have full access to the back end of the slave installation and everything seems to be working fine from the back end. However, the front end doesn't load: all that displays is a blank white page.

Can you think of what might be involved here when the back end and database tables install correctly but the front end would load?

This is a permission issue.
As mentioned several times in this forum and also in the tutorial video 15
www.jms2win.com/tutorial#jms12x-15

perhaps you have to use the Joomla FTP layer to increase the permssin.
In this case, this means that you probably will not be able to use the Symbolic LInk feature or that you will encounter permission issue with that.