I am starting a fresh install of JMS 1.2 on Joomla 1.7. I can see advantages and disadvantages to the three suggested DB architectures, so I'm not sure which to use. Also, the video presentations and user manual suggest different directory configurations.

Here is my plan:

Domains will not have subdomains. Only www.master.com, www.slave1.com, etc. Sites will not share users or content, but will share extensions. My provider allows infinite DBs and symbolic links.

Should I use a single DB, one DB for master and one for slaves, or a separate DB for each site? Also, should all slave domains point to public_html/master, or should each have its own directory (public_html/slave1, public_html/slave2).

Thanks!

If this is possible, it is better to have 1 DB for the master that is a private website and not public.
After that, create you slave site that can be domain, subdomain or subdirectories.

In the following, I will suppose that you are using cPanel as you written directory /public_html/slave1

When this is possible, never put your "addOn domain" in the root of the "/public_html" but prefered another root directory like "/domains". This avoid to have your addon domain also present as subdirectory of your primary domain.
See the technical document video 0.b slide 21-24 for the recommended architecture.
www.jms2win.com/en/tutorial#jms12x-0b
Put something like /domains/slave1.com/public_html

Concerning the DB, if you are allowed to have unlimited DBs and also allowed to share tables between different DBs, then it is perhaps better to have one DB per website.
If you just have very few website < 25 then perhaps it would be easier to share the same DB for several websites.

See also the list of extension that can be shared.
Becarefull that most of the extension also require to share the users.
www.jms2win.com/en/list-of-extensions?vi...id=269&Itemid=53

Thank you -- this is very helpful. I had reviewed the video several times, but I still wasn't entirely sure which approach was best.

I had already decided to have the master be a private URL and I highly recommend this. It seems to make things much easier.

Hi guys,

I'm going through the same thought pattern here and was wondering if you could give me some input.

On my server I have the URL www.mydomain.com where I have my public company website that just explains about my business.

Then I have created a secondary domain www.social.mydomain.com where I want to host my Joomla! social website that will be the template to be used with JMS2Win multi sites.

On my server I have created a sub-domain of the secondary domain for the 'master' site so the directory structure is like this: www.social.mydomain.com/master and I installed my Master Joomla! site with JMS2win Multisites into this directory.

I'm going to create slave sites via sub-directories instead of domains or sub-domains.

When I create my slave sites they come out like this: www.social.mydomain.com/master/slave1

The problem is:

a) I want the site to look like: www.social.mydomain.com/slave1 (I entered this structure into the list of domains in the JMS2Win Multisites admin but I get a 404 page error). How do I achieve this URL?

b) If a user enters the wrong URL or somehow jumps out of their slave then the JMS notes mention the user will be redirected to the master site. But isn't this a security risk? How do I hide the master from anyone knowing it exists? Can I set the redirect to another URL or directory?

Thanks for your help.

Hi again,

I've been testing different variables and I've found one that works to almost solve the URL problems:

1) I've installed my master into: /chroot/home/myaccount/social.mydomain.com/html/master

and the slave deployment folder is hardcoded to:

/chroot/home/myaccount/social.mydomain.com/html/{site_id}

Is this a problem that the deployment folder is hardcoded?

2) I'm using the List of URL's variable: " http://{site_domain}/{site_id} " however this generates a URL "/slave1"

If I hard code the URL during setup to www.social.mydomain.com/slave1 then it works fine.

Can you please let me know what variables I can use to achieve this domain without hard coding it?

3) Lastly, I've setup my images, template into the following:
{deploy_dir}/templates
{deploy_dir}/images

However the templates directory deploys into /social.mydomain.com/html/slave1/slave1/templates/ instead of /social.mydomain.com/html/slave1/templates/

Is this an issue? (the images and media folders deploy correctly).

Thanks again for any advice and assistance.

As you want to have the slave site in "brother" directory of your master then the easiest way is effectivelly to enter in the domain

www.social.mydomain.com/{site_id}

and in the "deploy folder"
/chroot/home/myaccount/social.mydomain.com/html/{site_id}

The key element is to have the domain URL and deploy folder consistent.