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The “open_basedir none” solution in Andy’s thread helped solve a similar problem with MSM and Webfusion VPS & Plesk.

After following the msm setup instructions my web server would not display the second site on the second domain.

The message I got was

"The system path does not appear to be set correctly. Please open your path.php file and correct the path."

I re-checked the path settings in the second-domain path.php file:

[code]$system_path = "/var/www/vhosts/master-domain.co.uk/httpdocs/system/";
$site_name = 'second-domain-sitename';

</code></pre>
And these were correct for my VPS. Plesk also had php safe off in the control panel.

The issue was solved, again, by setting the open_basedir to none.

However, the fix process is different for WebFusion so the following maybe useful to others using MSM and WebFusion VPS:-

WebFusion starts Apache by automatically including a “httpd.include” file for each domain.

Each httpd.include file is held in the “/var/www/vhosts/domain-name.com/conf” directory.

So all I had to do (eventually) was login as root using Putty, go to the second-domain conf directory and edit the httpd.include using vi as below:

change from:  php_admin_value open_basedir "/var/www/vhosts/second-domain/conf/tmp"
to:           php_admin_value open_basedir none

Then I restarted Apache from the Plesk control panel.

It worked a treat. The good thing about individual httpd.include files is that the main php.ini file doesn’t have to be amended (big scary file with too many ways of breaking the server)

Hope this is helpful.

Regards

Steve

PS Sorry if this is obvious but please make sure you back-up httpd.include file before editing - this will do:-

root: cp httpd.include httpd.bak

(I messed up mine before I got to grips with vi free tutorial)

PPS Alternatively if you don’t fancy playing with system files - simply ask your web server support guys to change open_basedir to none for the second-domain and restart the web server.

stevealfa:

Many thanks for posting your experiences here.  I’m sure it will help others down the road.

-greg

Thanks Greg

Its good to share 😊

Here’s another twist that someone may find useful.

I decided today to password protect the site directory using the Plesk control panel. This works fine for a stand alone ee installation but it stopped MSM.

It seems Plesk added a whole pile of code to the httpd.include file. Rather than pick my way through I restored the working copy of the httpd.include file and it worked again.

I still however, had to password protect the site. So I used .htaccess - and this works fine

All the Best

Steve

PS Someone may also find this useful. This is the simple 2 step process I used to password protect the site using .htaccess

1. Create password text file with a username and encrypted password
Using PuTTY and SHH, go to a discreet folder up from httpdocs (you can use the httpdocs folder but I feel this is more secure). Then use an Apache facility htpasswd to make the text file.

The syntax is htpasswd -c htpasswordtextfilename username

eg 
root: cd /var/www/vhosts/mydomain.com/discretefolder
root: htpasswd -c .ht123xyz joe

The system then prompts for a password and writes the file.

2. Add the following code to the .htaccess file in the folder/site you want to protect

AuthUserFile /var/www/vhosts/mydomain.com/discretefolder/.ht123xyz
AuthType Basic
AuthName "This text will be displayed in the browser Authentication Required prompt"
Require valid-user

PPS If you don’t like PuTTY & SHH there are .htpasswd encryption tools that will help generate the password file offline.

stevealfa,

Thanks for those. It would be great if you could add those tips to our Wiki if you get a chance.

Closing this thread out for now.