Thread

I have an existing site that I’d like to convert to a Multiple Site Manager installation as the the original site for the MSM.  Then, I’d like to develop and add an additional site to the MSM installation.  I’d like to develop the additional site locally and then add it to the live MSM installation after It is completed.

Is there a suggested workflow or guide for developing a MSM site (a non original site) locally and then transferring it to a live MSM installation?  I’ve done this before with a regular EE site, but I don’t know if there are any differences in doing this for a MSM site.  I looked around and wasn’t able to find anything on this.  Sorry if I’ve missed it somewhere.

Thank you for any help.

Hi justinkwithj,

Let me see if I can sort this out with you. MSM is an ExpressionEngine *expansion*, a very special kind of add-on. Since it allows you to run multiple sites off of one EE install, having a separate install wouldn’t quite work as you have outlined. Here are a couple of ways you might approach this:
1) Pull down a working copy of your existing site into a development server and install, configure and begin using MSM.
2) Install, configure and use MSM on the site as is. In this case, you can keep the second site in the offline state until you are ready to launch. Having it there will have no impact on your current live site.

Let me know if you have any further questions about how MSM works.

Thanks!

Dan,

Thanks for your reply. 

Maybe I’ll begin by stating a little bit more clearly what I’d like to do.  I have an existing fully functioning live EE site (site A).  I’d like to merge site A with an additional site (B) in a single MSM installation and eventually take site B live without having to take site A offline.  I’d like to do the development work for site B locally because it’s more efficient for me.  I use MAMP as my local development platform.  I’m assuming that MAMP can be used to develop locally with MSM.  I guess that may be another issue entirely.

So, if I’m understanding you correctly for option 1, the steps would be:
• Pull down site A to local development and leave site A running on the live server,
• install MSM for site A on the local development platform,
• develop site B locally on the MSM installation,
• when development is completed upload the MSM installation containing sites A and B to the live server.

My only question is how would I merge the changes that were made on the live site A to the older version of site A that was used locally in development?

Your option 2 is a viable option but I’ll only use it if there is no way for me to develop locally.

Thanks for your help.

Hi Justin,

I think we are pretty much on the same page here and that you have a good grasp of the issues that might arise from this.

There may be a way to get the best of both worlds as it were. Making an “option 3” that is a melding of the other 2.

•Pull down Site A to a local install.
•Install MSM on both the live server and your local server
•Point your local install to the remote, live database, in /system/expressionengine/config/database.php

This should allow you to develop mostly locally and keep both environments in sync with regards to the database. Not entirely elegant, I admit.

Another, more intensive option would be to bring all of your environments into version control. Erik Reagan has rounded up some serious resources on the matter. That may be a bit more complex than what you are after, but it solves most of the “gotchas” in instances like this.

Please let me know if I can help you in anyway.

Thanks!

Dan your option looks like a good hybrid solution that should allow for easy re-integration with the live site.  I’m going to try it out and let you know how it works. Thanks for thinking through this with me.

justinkwithj,

Is everything okay on this then?

Sean

So after toying around with this idea for a bit I don’t think it will actually work.  If the local development installation and the live installation share the same database it will lead to conflicts in areas such as the site root directory, paths for various components, and the base URLs.  I don’t see any way of resolving this without making one of the installations nonfunctional.  Dan Decker any thoughts?

Hi Justin,

Have a look into Greeny. There is a section about sharing a remote database between environments, in your case local and remote. That may be the magic you are looking for.

Cheers!

Dan, thanks for the great hint there with Greeny.  Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get things situated to work correctly, even with Greeny.  For this project, at least, I’m going to have to just push ahead and develop it “live.”  I can’t spend any more time trying to get the dev environment setup.  However, maybe this is a setup that I could use for a future MSM project.  Seriously, thank you so much for the help and you can consider this thread closed.

Justin,

Don’t hesitate to post again when you need more assistance.

Sean