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10 Minute Multisite Install & Configuration (wouldn't that be great!):

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Multisite 10 minute Install:

Server: LAMP
SSH/Telenet Client: PuTTY
Must have root access to your server.

If website in question is an addon domain, i.e., addon.mydomain.tld, then substitute "www" for "addon" in steps below.

For list of Linux commands visit: http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/cmd/ or http://www.ss64.com/bash/

Here we go:

Login using PuTTY

Get to location where Drupal core will be located:

[/]# cd /var/www

Upload Drupal core:

"x.x" should be replaced with the version of Drupal you're installing, e.g. "5.1"

[/var/www]# wget http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/drupal/files/projects/drupal-x.x.tar.gz

Unpack Drupal core:

[/var/www]# tar -zxvf drupal-5.1.tar.gz

Move contents of Drupal core (including .htaccess) to html:

[/var/www]# mv drupal-x.x/* drupal-x.x/.htaccess /var/www/html

Clean-up:

[/var/www]# rm drupal-x.x.tar.gz

[/var/www]# rm drupal-5.1

Addition from http://drupal.org/node/49605:

Check ownership and permissions - if you've downloaded directly, they're likely to be very wrong. Security note of caution: I typically go through and change permissions to 444 (read-only) for all .php, .gif, .jpg and .css files. In drupal, that'll also mean .module files. You'll have trouble editing these files, but that's the point. It's easier to change permissions temporarily on a file you want to hack than it is to fix a break-in.

chown -R siteX:siteX .
chmod -R 444 *.php *.gif *.jpg *.css *.tar *.module

I think the "R" is for recursive, but I don't understand the siteX:siteX ., so if anyone could clarify that would be important.

Create the files directory per Drupal instructions and change permissions (will change permission again after install):

[/var/www]# cd html

[/var/www/html]# mkdir files

[/var/www/html]# chmod 777 files

Make directories that will hold custom and contributes modules and themes:

[/var/www/html]# cd sites/all

[/var/www/html/sites/all]# mkdir modules

[/var/www/html/sites/all]# mkdir themes

[/var/www/html/sites/all]# cd modules

[/var/www/html/sites/all/modules]# mkdir custom

[/var/www/html/sites/all/modules]# mkdir contrib

[/var/www/html/sites/all/modules]# cd ../

[/var/www/html/sites/all]# cd themes

[/var/www/html/sites/all/themes]# mkdir custom

[/var/www/html/sites/all/themes]# mkdir contrib

Create directory "www.mydomain.tld":

[/var/www/html/sites/all/themes]# cd ../

[/var/www/html/sites/all]# cd ../

[/var/www/html/sites]# mkdir www.mydomain.com

Change permission of "settings.php" per Drupal instructions and copy "settings.php" in default to www.mydomain.tld:

[/var/www/html/sites]# cd default

[/var/www/html/sites/default]# chmod 777 settings.php

[/var/www/html/sites/default]# cd ../

[/var/www/html/sites]# cp -rp sites/default sites/www.mydomain.tld

Create database and user with permissions:

[/var/www/html/sites]# mysql

mysql> CREATE DATABASE wwwmydomaintld_drupal;

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wwwmydomaintld_drupal.* TO 'wwwmydomaintld_myusername'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'mypassword';

mysql> flush privileges;

mysql> \q

Go back to PuTTY to chmod on settings.php in www.mydomain.tld:

[/var/www/html/sites]# cd www.mydomain.tld

[/var/www/html/sites/www.mydomain.tld]# chmod 755 settings.php

[/var/www/html/sites/www.mydomain.tld]# logout

What next?:

  • Make changes to "settings.php" in www.mydomain.tld? I've read that it's not necessary to make changes to setting.php.
  • Make changes to "httpd.conf" in /usr/local/apache/conf?

I've been using WHM to create accounts, putting Drupal in public_html and having no problems. But when it comes to parting from the WHM abstraction and getting multisite set-up correctly this is the end of the proverbial road for me.

Could use help...:

  1. Help making improvements to steps articulated above
  2. Help with next steps so that I/we can get on to grander things, like creating modules, custom themes, profiles, (and maybe - just maybe - spend some time working on business strategy :-)