TheFazz.com | trends shaping us

I post this on the drupal website at http://drupal.org/node/91684

I have posted a couple of requests for support on the following threads:

http://drupal.org/node/62255
http://drupal.org/node/62255#comment-126256

http://drupal.org/node/64591#comment-122097

...but can't seem to get any answers. perhaps my requests are buried deep in the thread. so i decide to create a new thread to seek help.

what i am trying to achieve

i would like to setup more than one drupal site using a single code base. each site would have different settings / databases. i do not want to have subdomains (although this could be a later requirement) or parked domains (as suggested by fidelis on http://drupal.org/node/62255#comment-126409). my response: i intend to set up various community interest sites with a single domain as being the traffic aggregator, so the additional domains is not an option.

the problem

my main site, http://www.tivix.net/ points to "/public_html", which in my understanding is the drupal root. all my drupal files and subdirectories are installed in "/public_html", so the sites directories are located: "/public_hmtl/sites" and the corresponding url for the second site is intended to be http://www.tivix.net/newsite

I have setup the configuration on sites/www.tivix.net.newsite/settings.php accordingly with the necessary mysql database access variables (different from the mainsite database) and the base url being http://www.tivix.net/newsite

when i point the browser url to http://www.tivix.net/newsite it does not reach the newsite controls & database, but instead reaches the mainsite controls with a "page not found" error.

i considered the standard multisite install with a couple of options:

option a.

maincode installed in /firstsite/ subdirectory from the root (url1 = www.tivix.net/firstsite). i would like to access another site via url2 = www.tivix.net/newsite. so i created the subdirectory under /firstsite/sites/www.tivix.net.newsite/ but i cannot seem to access it via the url2 above.

option b.

maincode installed in / root directory (ie public_html) (url1 = www.tivix.net). i would like to access another site via url2 = www.tivix.net/newsite. so i created the subdirectory under /sites/www.tivix.net.newsite/ . Still, i cannot seem to access it via the url2 above.

using option b above... i tried symlink as follows:

ln -s root root/newsite

and...

ln -s root/ root/newsite/

and...

ln -s /public_html /public_html/newsite

and...

ln -s /public_html/ /public_html/newsite/

neither works.

anything else needs changing? .htaccess perhaps? if so, what do i look for and change?

what i am using

• cpanel based shared webhost
• php 5.1.5
• mySQL 4.1.21-standard
• phpmyadmin
• drupal 4.7
• putty SSH
• url friendly links

no shell access.

my skill level

beginner. i know very little of unix / linux commands. very little of htaccess. i've read the handbook and the install instructions over and over again and i am very confused. i still do not know how to set it up properly.

I appreciate any help i can get here.

cheers

fazz