I have managed to get the symbolic links created in the slave website directory by changing the permissions ion the directory.
However, it seems that sometimes they are not always followed.
For example when going through the install process for the slave site it stalled (nothing happened when clicking on 'next') on the step to create the database parameters.

The reason was that the Javascript library to do the validation had not been loaded because it was accessed through a symbolic link to the /media directory, and that did not load.
I ensured that the relevant htaccess file had symbolic links followed (and my ISP does allow symbolic links), but this made no difference.

When I replaced the symbolic link with the actual library there was no problem and the install process continued successfully.

Now I am finding that the site is accessible, but the administrator part is not, because that part is accessed through a symbolic link.

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Geoff

Change the owner ship can be done from a SSH terminal.
Use the "chown" linux command.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe that this is generally possible on a shared server from an ISP.

Thanks,

Geoff

The owner ship can be modifed with a linux command like "chown".
You need a SSH terminal to change that.
If you have such "ownership" problem this probably mean that your hosting company didn't have installl an apache module such as suPHP to guarantee the consistency of the ownership.

If you don't have access to SSH, perhaps you should report the problem of ownership to your hosting company that have all the rights to fix the permissions of the files and folders.