Dizkus

Season's greeetings to all.

I've been reading about multi-site installations now that I successfully installed PN (YAY!). I'm not asking how to configure it, but I do have some questions on the benefits. In some cases, I'm asking for confirmation of what I've read thus far. I found the information at http://www.athomeandabout.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Subjects&file=index&req=viewpage&pageid=4 especially helpful for MS installation,though it also raised some questions,. Do domains on an MS have to share the same IP address?

Is sharing information (registrations, stats, etc) the only advantage of multisites? If one has 2 or more unrelated sites on the same server, would an MS be practical, with different looks and information for each site, so long as one doesn't mind a shared registration? Would it be possible not to have a registration for one of the sites?

Would it just be better to have a separate PN installation for each domain (unrelated to any others by content)?

Different scenario: 2 or 3 separate domains and sites closely related (similar content, different geographical areas). I know they can run from an MS. Can permissions for editing of stories be restricted to each site? In other words, with sites A, B, C running on an MS, can someone associated with site A be restricted to editing stories in site A only and not have access to B and C (unless their admins granted that access)?

I think that will do it for the questions. The answers wil tell me how I should proceed.

Hi Duster

I'll try and answer your questions. I have another article about multisites (you read my other one!) that answer most of the questions in your post .. unfortunately I've been a bit remiss with the holiday season about and haven't put it up on the site. Haven't got an excuse now

There are a number of possible advantages to multisites:
* One installation of PN only - many sites - thus space saving and also if there are security updates etc you only have to update in one place for all your sites
* Multisites are originally desiged to do just that - totally different websites run from one PN installation. Different themes etc and you can have totally different user bases if you want.
* You do not have to share all the content. You can use the same database which is useful but have separate tables and content.

You could have separate PN installations - but why? More setup, more maintenance, more disk space.

Re permissions, if you want the sites completely separate in a multisite you can, including users or permissions. You can also have one member limited to edit only specific content at one site but all or none at another (note - the limitations are dependent on the specific modules you use - ie how the module author has set up the permissions for that module)

Hopefully I'll have my new doc up tomorrow sometime - or may add a bit to the existing multisites doc on my site.
Check out the forums as well on my site as there is some useful information there I think on multisite installations.

Hope this has been some help
jo

Thank you. Just knowing that it can be done the way I hoped has been helpful. I've been reading here for months (and contributing some ideas when I could) and thought MS would do that, but recent talk has been about sharing registrations and such. I know PN is still instransition and features may change from one version to another. I'm glad this one didn't I like the idea of a singe installation on my server for all the sites/domains that might use it (for all the reasons you noted as well as simplicity itself) , yet each one still separate as far as usage. I'll be sure to check out your site and forums for even more information

I hope you'll include information about modules like forums and whether they require separate installations or can run as MS ones as well. I have another post around here about the path to forums. Presently it is mydomain/modules/forums and I would rather it be mydomain/forums If you know any way to accomplish that, especially for MS installations, I hope you will include it in your next artcle.

Thanks again for taking the time to write them. They are most helpful. You're making for a happier new year already, at lleast for me.