Welcome to the forums!

It's a pretty easy task. First create the blogs and set their "Absolute URL" to oh.domain.com, pa.domain.com etc. on Blog settings > URLs

Then edit your DNS settings and point all subdomains into the same web root where b2evolution is installed. For instance if you have /home/user/public_html/admin.php, point subdomains to /home/user/public_html/

If you configured DNS correctly, you should see b2evolution blogs for all your subdomains.

One thing you need to be aware of. You will have to disable AJAX forms and Page cache for all your blogs :( b2evolution 4 does not support Page cache on multidomain installs. Blog settings > Advanced

I tried to do this using a redirect (there was a button for this next to a button about DNS, the contents of which I did not understand), but only got an error message.

Further, I'd like to use separate databases for my separate blogs. How do I configure this?

Thanks in advance for any help.

My current installation is at:

www.theherzes.com

I have subdomains of:

david.theherzes.com
coach. . .
manners . . .
and one for my wife and each of my kids.

Currently, I have separate databases for coach and manners as I originally had a separate install for each. I'm trying to clean things up, but I feel like I am in way over my head.

I also have another domain, www.davidherz.org, which lives in a subdirectory of my theherzes.com, the content of which I'd also like to manage in b2evo.

The easiest way to have separate databases is to have separate installations.

You can share the files if you edit the the paths in /conf/_advanced.php but I wouldn't recommend it unless you know exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. It will probably take you more time and create more problems than maintaining 2 separate installations.

Okay, I can consolidate most of my databases into one (I'll do this manually as it would probably take me way to long to try to automate the process). Can I later extract the information from just one of the blogs hosted if I want to separate it out if it takes on a life of its own or wants to go to a dedicated server or other domain?

I tried the redirect, and had no luck. I set the absolute URL to http://www.david.theherzes.com/, and set a redirect from david.theherzes.com to http://www.theherzes.com/, with a document root of /public_html/davi
d. This gave me a 404 error. I tried appending blog1.php to the redirect and this did nothing either.

Do I need a file or a stub or something in the subfolders to make this work?

I have still not solved this problem. I have a domain www.theherzes.com. I have sub-domains for various purposes (personal blog, business, kids' pages, etc.) each with their own sub-folder in my root directory, which is where b2 is also installed. I also have a separate domain, www.davidherz.org that resides is a sub-directory of my root directory, that I also want to manage (I may eventually use a separate install to use a separate database, but don't see the need right now).

To date, I have not been able to direct my separate domains to the separate blogs. What do I need to put in each sub-directory to make this happen?

I am on a shared hosting system using c-panel.

Please, when answering, assume I am absolutely new to this, that is I do not automatically know any files that should be in any of my sub-directories, my knowledge of PHP (also HTML and CSS) is extremely limited, and what you may consider basic settings are unknown to me.

Hello @drherz,

You don't need to add anything to your folders, please make sure that all your domains and subdomains are pointed to your main b2evolution directory on the web server (this could be done from your c-panel account and the support staff of your web hosting company could help you with this in an more effective way than us). For example: www.theherzes.com and www.davidherz.org (and all the subdamains) must open up your b2evo main page. After that, you need to work with the URL settings direct from the back-office.

Each separate blog needs to be configured with its own URL parameter, to do that, please go to Blogs > [Your blog] > URLs > Blog URL [Admin]. In this form you must set the URL that corresponds to each blog.

When I try david.theherzes.com with a temporary redirect, I get:

Not Found

The requested URL /blog1.php was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

If I try www.theherzes.com, I get:

404 Not Found

The blog you requested doesn't seem to exist on this system.

AJAX Debug log
Clear
Debug info

HTTP Response code: 404
$content_type_header:
$disp: -- detail:
$robots_index:
$robots_follow: etc.

When I try http://www.theherzes.com/admin.php, it is:

An unexpected error has occurred!

If this error persists, please report it to the administrator.

Go back to home page

Additional information about this error:

Blog::get(baseurl)/baseurlroot - assertion failed [baseurl: http://].
Backtrace:

debug_die( "Blog::get(baseurl)/baseurlroot - assertion failed [baseurl: http://]." )
File: /home/theherze/public_html/inc/collections/model/_blog.class.php on line 1119
Blog->get_baseurl_root( ) etc.

I can't get into my back office now for blog1 at all. The redirect didn't work and now I can't change the absolute redirect back because it won't let me into my URL management. I am stuck with

1 MrHerz Mr. Herz admin http://www.david.theherzes.com

on my global dashboard and no access to changing it back.

Help?!

Testing the domains that you mention I could notice that all the domains/sub-domains are now redirecting to the main login form at: http://www.theherzes.com/admin.php. Now, the problem looks like you have not include the trailing slash "/" to http://www.theherzes.com/ when manipulate your URL's. This issue blocks the access to go back to the URL configuration for that blog.

Please read the comments on this post: http://forums.b2evolution.net/baseurl-problems-in-multiple-domain-installation, there we treat a similar situation. Now if you could update your b2evo to the recently released v5.0.6, this issue has been solved and you will be able to manage your URL again as usually.

Please tell us if you are able to perform the udate process. If not, maybe you have to fix the URL directly on the database (as suggested on the recently quoted post).

The upgrade to 5.06 did not solve the problem. I did edit the database itself, as the other post suggested, a post which I had seen yesterday, but didn't get completely until reviewing under your direction. But now I can't get the redirect to point to blog1 instead of the admin. I've tried adding blog1.php, with or without a trailing / to the redirect, but I keep ending up on the admin page.

There, my settings are as follows:

Blog URL name: HerzBlog
Blog base URL:
Absolute URL http://www.david.theherzes.com/
URL preview: http://www.david.theherzes.com/

Now I renamed the index to see if it would make any difference, and it did. The redirect did go to the index file, so there must have been something in that pointing to the admin.php, whether I am logged in or not. But then, when named it back, and I get a:

404 Not Found

The blog you requested doesn't seem to exist on this system.

AJAX Debug log
Clear
Debug info

HTTP Response code: 404
$content_type_header:
$disp: -- detail:
$robots_index:
$robots_follow:
11 SQL queries executed in 0.002 seconds

The index file indicated it is optional - and I'd actually prefer my own static page for the index file - but now it seems to have some function, and seems to be malfunctioning.

I thank you for all your help so far. I wonder that this couldn't all be made clearer in the manual. It would save you a lot of time, and certainly enhance the user experience.

Apparently I screwed up in understanding **point** to mean redirect. I killed all my redirects as Mr. Planque suggested in another post. I also just noticed under my system tab of the back office that I still seem to be using version 5.05. I will try to reinstall the newer version, but I am confused as to why it did not take.

I got 5.06 working. I don't think anything is "pointed" as it should be. When I tried to change the URL in my Dashboard, I lose any blog I apply this to, and when I enter my sub in my browser, I get a page with the words Index of / on it (I did clear my cache by the way).

@drherz I know that you're trying to get answers on different ways, but is much better if we try your problem in an unique post, this way we can always have access to the whole conversation.

So sad that "point" was confusing to you. Please, BEFORE to make any change on your back-office, be sure that all the domains / subdomains that you want to use are opening your main site. For example: mydomain.com, sub1.mydomain.com, sub2.mydomain.com, anotherdomain.com, must show your b2evo main page.

If you read the first comment of this post, he says exactly the same that @fplanque and I have been telling you. I'm just suggesting to invert the order (first aliases and then the URL settings at b2evolution) just to try to do not distract you if something is broken in the meantime.

Finally, have you tried to contact the support of your hosting provider? All that you have to say them is you need something like this:

<VirtualHost *>
    ServerName mydomain.com
    ServerAlias *.mydomain.com
    ServerAlias *otherdomain.com
    UseCanonicalName Off
    DocumentRoot /home/mydomain/www
</VirtualHost>

As @fplanque said: "make aliases that all show the same main folder of your website".

Just to make it extremely clear: until you have all your domains pointing correctly to the same place (meaning they should all display the same thing without any redirection) which is something you do with the tools or the support of your hosting provider, do NOT try to change settings in b2evo. It cannot work until you solve the pointing issue with your provider first.

I got the pointing issue settled with my provider. They told me to delete my subdomains and recreate them with document root public_html, my root directory. Previously, they were all some folder under this. Thus david.theherzes.com had had document root of public_html/david.

Now, when I set the absolute URL to one of my subs, I am always taken back to my index.php on my main page, which is not even a blog page.

I don't know if that is enough to set the aliases. Also, I don't know where I should place the above code regarding aliases. I'll ask my provider again. Also, I have obviously tried many permutations of absolute URL settings before I got any of this figured out. I cleared my browser caches. Do I need to reset any other such memory or setting to get this working?

Thanks again for your patience and help. I guess at least I am giving you extra pointers and material for the manual.

I feel that we go back and forth. Please list here the domains / subdomains that you want to set on your b2evo site (so many comments that anyone could be lost :D)

If you could configure your aliases through c-panel, maybe you don't need the code that I pasted above. That was an example supposed to help you to explain your provider's support how exactly you need to configure your domains.

You have to define where will be located your b2evo files, e.g. /public_html/b2evolution. Then, the document root of all the domains that you want to use must go there DocumentRoot /public_html/b2evolution.

@drherz Now you have your domains pointing to your public_html directory, the next step is to have b2evolution show up there. You want to see the main b2evolution page for each of your URL. Until you get that working, it is conter-productive to try anything else.

I have b2evolution version 5.06 is installed in my base directory.

You can access any of my blogs from my home page, www.theherzes.com. At present, they are just linked as:

www.theherzes.com/coach.php
www.theherzes.coml/manners.php
www.theherzes.com/david.php

I have sub-domains set for all of these as:

www.coach.theherzes.com
www.manners.theherzes.com
www.david.theherzes.com

I have tried to clear my caches and set these as absolute URLs in the appropriate place, but when I do that, these all just open my home page, www.theherzes.com/index.php. Actually, they all open up to my home page regardless of the b2evolution setting.

@drherz Again: You want to see the main b2evolution page for each of your URL.

You want b2evolution to show up when you type www.theherzes.com or www.coach.theherzes.com .

It is not enough to have it on www.theherzes.com/coach.php or www.coach.theherzes.com/coach.php

(Note: it could theoretically be done without touching your homepage but this adds another layer of complexity and a big one! I don't think you have the technical skills to bypass the normal solution for now.)

So, you really need to do as stated above. Until you get that working, it is conter-productive to try anything else.

If you don't want to do this, please hire a professional to set up your system.
http://b2evolution.net/about/professionals.php

@drherz : I added a lot of info and completely refactored this manual page:
http://b2evolution.net/man/installation-upgrade/advanced-setup/multiple-domains

I hope it is much clearer now. Please let us know.

I added a comment at the manual that I think makes it even clearer, but I like the work you've done.

I don't mind using the stock index file, but then I would want other content under my Blog1 (I understand it has special qualities). How do I transfer the content of Blog1 to a different or newly created blog, or redesignate it as Blog# on the same install and database?

As to technical skills, I have them; I just haven't distinguished every necessary aspect of them yet. I know getting this far has been frustrating, but the root of it all was the simple misunderstanding of a term a month ago that unfortunately had us running in circles.