Thread

I’ll start by saying I am an utter newbie to expression engine. So please answer in newbie terms with all required steps.
version is 2.2.2 hosted on a Network Solutions Server

I was following the installation guidelines on your site and in Ryan Irelan’s Book
I Installed Expression Engine into a site folder below my root folder as the example showed all worked well,
htdocs\site\system
htdocs\site\images
htdocs\site\themes

I then followed your security suggestions and moved the system directory up one level and renamed it. I made the required path changes in config.php and index.php - all was still working well.
htdocs\system (renamed)
htdocs\site\images
htdocs\site\themes

Now, I am attempting to move the themes and images directories up to the root as well. Mainly because I will eventually be purchasing the MSM and will have multiple site folders under the root directory. I assume this would be the correct location for these assets in a multisite scenario.

htdocs\system (renamed)
htdocs\images
htdocs\themes
htdocs\site1
htdocs\site2
etc

When I move these folders I am obviously breaking an entry in a path statement somewhere as the Admin panel no longer has any styling or images.However, I have been unable to locate and obvious place to correct these paths.

Could you please forward instruction to me and confirm that I am on the right path for a multi-site setup?

Try Deeploy Helper. It’s free, and may be of some assistance. Even if it doesn’t fix the control panel images thing, you’ll want it for future migrations.

Unfortunately, EE is a bit messy and has path settings spread all over the control panel.

Thank You for your reply.

I was able to successfully install the Deeploy_Helper and I can now see the paths.

I am now left with the other half of the question I originally posed.

I’ll Start by saying I apologize in advance if I am asking a stupid question here.
I am trying to get my head around how to properly locate the EE Administrative Interface assets separately from the various website assets. Then, of course, how tell EE where the administrative assets are.

Where should the images and themes folders reside in a multisite scenario? Should they be located in the hosting root where the system folder is located (/htdocs/) or duplicated in the various site root folders as they are now (/htdocs/site1/).

I noticed in the Deeploy_Helper module that EE requires both paths and urls to the various images and themes folders.

I can change the path statements to point to the root hosting folder (host alias)/htdocs/ but I cannot point the live site urls to that directory as DNS currently resolves site urls to the site1 root folder (htdocs/site1).

It appears to me that the images and themes folders may need to remain inside each of the site folders??
or
I would need to change the DNS record of the site to point to the hosting root folder and set the urls to the hosting root as well.

If I were to do the latter, how would I direct the site1 requests to my individual site1 directory??
HTaccces file edits????

Does any one know of a guidance document on the proper installation of EE for multi-site hosting with MSM?

Thank You again for you assistance.

I’m not 100% certain on where you’ve placed everything here. However, it sounds like you’re making things more complicated than they need to be. You shouldn’t be making DNS changes, etc. That has nothing to do with your EE install or websites. An A record simply points to your IP where the web server is running.

I’ve done a few MSM installs, renamed the system directory, but didn’t do any of this other shuffling around. 😊

The structure I have on a typical MSM site is:

- msm-site1.com
- msm-site2.com
- system (which has been renamed)
- themes
- index.php
- images
- css
- js

So, I guess I haven’t bothered to move system above root. I vaguely recall I may have bumped in to issues in trying to do so. Each MSM and the primary site still have their own .htaccess for clean URL’s, etc.

Hi QuickSilver,

Have you seen this page in the documentation yet?

It deals a lot with the Multiple Site Manager and how to go about best setting things up to get it working.

Perhaps if you try to follow the recommended methods in there this might make things a little easier for you.

Does that help?

Thanks,

Mark

Mark, TevC

Thank you both for your quick response and sage advice.

I had not ventured into the MSM Docs area yet so I had not seen the document Mark referred me to. Next time I’ll look a little farther.

I have previously done my site work in Dreamweaver and or Flash and each site was completely self contained within its site folder.
I am new to the EE concept of database managed shared assets, I assumed that each site folder would need its own images and themes folders and this set was purely for the “EE Admin” interface. However, I believe I am on the right track now.

Your help and patience are appreciated.

Glad to hear that. Feel free to start a new thread if you have any more questions.