Virtual Sites module

All content is in one space / one database, you can just override various things based on the incoming domain. All these different solutions are hella confusing for anyone trying to figure out when to use one over the other. e.g. virtual sites says "no FTP or SSH required!" -- which, for me, isn't really a bonus :P

Sounds very similar to http://drupal.org/project/domain -- which, at least, I think more clearly describes what it does. I wonder why this project was written -- what use-case it solves.

What I do not see, looking at the code, is how the module partitions content across the various virtual sites.

[ Update: Apparently, it does not, see http://drupal.org/node/230563 ]

The more interesting piece for me is the new Condition(s) module: http://drupal.org/project/condition

@Boris -- see also http://groups.drupal.org/node/9796

--
http://ken.therickards.com/
http://savannahnow.com/user/2
http://blufftontoday.com/user/3

I believe that Virtual Sites expects you to use its hooks to separate content using table prefixing. So the fundamental difference between VS and Domain is that Domain is designed to selectively share content across a collection of sites.

--
http://ken.therickards.com/
http://savannahnow.com/user/2
http://blufftontoday.com/user/3

I have to start fresh. Part of me wants to do things right the first time. Another part is afraid of starting out too complex for a beginner by doing that. But either way, I have to reinstall drupal on my development server at home, on the one hand, and think about whether to go with multisite on my server, on the other.

First about the reinstall: I originally botched this by first installing xAmpp when I was doing a joomla tutorial, then overwriting that install with a Developer Suite Community Version install, which conflicted with it. At this point, I've managed to delete all related files by uninstalling both. But I've noticed that the DevSide Suite comes with Drupal 5.3 (according to http://drupal.org/node/195238 ).

Well, so do I go with the latest stable release (6.12, I think as of this writing), or are there compelling reasons to stick with a 5.x version?

Second, about multi-sites. On this I have a slew of questions, probably all stupid ones born of my non-experience with CMS generally, on the one hand, and lack of practice working with a development server, on the other.

1. How do I go from development server at home, to server server at my web host?
2. Is it fair to my various clients if one CMS is extremely bandwidth/CPU intensive? Will the others suffer?
3. If all are coming from the same apache server and some are in html awaiting a conversion to cms, having extensions like index.htm that will be usurped by index.php how do I control priority order on the individual domains while development is underway?
4. Is it possible to have both a 6+ and 5+ version running simultaneously without crashing my development server? (I'd like to compare).
5. If my ultimate goal on these sites is to customize and maybe go ninja (I know this is a big goal), won't I need separate core drupals?

Well, those are some starter questions. Pretty much everything around here leaves me with more questions than answers. But it certainly sounds like it has some potential if I can catch on.

James Carvin
Thank you for your help!

I'm running two web sites and I need not to share theme, blocks, user and some node.

I firstly tried prefixing tables like variable, cache, menu, blocks etc, but upgrading modules/code would be too complicated because of db modifications.

I tried then Domain module but it is still a beta and the installation is also too complicated (I don't like the use of "include" and patches) even if, of course, it is a good mdule and hope to see it grow.

At the end I installed Virtual Sites and it seems what I need, stable release, easy to install and flexible as it depends not only on HTTP_HOST but on Conditions (this give me more possibilities like having a Virtual Site dedicated to a particular Role and much more). Blocks are shared so I configure each theme with its own blocks.

About node sharing I added a Vocabulary "Site visibility" for nodes, to filter Views results.