Same SMF Forum on multiple sites/domains

[Aaron10]

Hi guys, need some help doing this. I want an SMF forum on multiple sites/domains, for example:

site1.com/forum
site2.com/forum
site3.com/forum

Would be 3 different sites but each sharing the same forum. I have sort of achieved this by using this in the settings.php file:

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//$boardurl = 'http://mydomain.com/forum'; # URL to your forum's folder. (without the trailing /!)
$siteurl_1 = 'mydomain.com';
$siteurl_2 = 'myotherdomain.com';

$boardurl = 'http://' . ($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] == $siteurl_2 ||  $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] == 'www.'.$siteurl_2 ? $siteurl_2 : $siteurl_1 ) . '/forum'; # URL to your forum's folder. (without the trailing /!)

From Here

This does work but I can't login on any of the forums with any accounts. Also, would I be able to have a separate themes folder for each domain rather than them all sharing the same one? I'd like each one to have a different banner and background color, other than that they'll all use the same theme, footer etc.

Thanks in advance.

[emanuele]

This does work but I can't login on any of the forums with any accounts.

Did you apply the changes to Subs-Auth.php?

Also, would I be able to have a separate themes folder for each domain rather than them all sharing the same one? I'd like each one to have a different banner and background color, other than that they'll all use the same theme, footer etc.

That looks like this:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=491395.0
Unfortunately still not 100% fixed...

[Aaron10]

Did you apply the changes to Subs-Auth.php?

There isn't any difference in my subs-auth to this:

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// Any alias URLs?  This is mainly for use with frames, etc.
if (!empty($modSettings['forum_alias_urls']))
{
$aliases = explode(',', $modSettings['forum_alias_urls']);

$temp = $boardurl;
foreach ($aliases as $alias)
{
// Fake the $boardurl so we can set a different cookie.
$alias = strtr(trim($alias), array('http://' => '', 'https://' => ''));
$boardurl = 'http://' . $alias;

$cookie_url = url_parts(!empty($modSettings['localCookies']), !empty($modSettings['globalCookies']));

if ($cookie_url[0] == '')
$cookie_url[0] = strtok($alias, '/');

setcookie($cookiename, $data, time() + $cookie_length, $cookie_url[1], $cookie_url[0], 0);
}

$boardurl = $temp;
}

Unless I'm supposed to put in the right URLs, when I try to login on site2.com it redirects me to site1.com

That looks like this:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=491395.0
Unfortunately still not 100% fixed...

I may have to resort to bringing my header forward through an iframe which would get the job done until it is ever fixed.

EDIT: Actually just simply using

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$boardurl = 'http://'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].'/forum';

Seems to work fine without any login problems/redirects. Gonna keep this topic open though while I test it and if I need any help with the themes.

[Aaron10]

Ok managed to modify the header by using local links to images and recreating the directory on my other sites. All images and links are working fine, except the back ground color needs changing. How/where do I attach my own CSS stylesheet so it can use the the background color from there? I thought it would be index.template.php but it didn't work (I did remove the background color style from my theme' CSS as well as the normal links, so there are no duplicate styles between the two stylesheets).

Also about the cookies across multiple domains - all my domains are addon domains, so they all basically share the same IP:

12.345.678.90/domain1/forum.php
12.345.678.90/domain2/forum.php
12.345.678.90/domain3/forum.php

etc.

So would there be no way to have the cookies look at those URLs or not?

[emanuele]

Add to your settings table (in the database) a new record:

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forum_alias_urls
and value for it a comma separated list of your domains:

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domain1.com,domain2.com,domain3.com
that should work with the code in Subs-Auth.php above (sorry, I misread SleePy's post, he intended that this is an "hidden" feature of SMF and just setting the proper value into the database it will work).

[Aaron10]

Am I also supposed to do something in modsettings? I added that to the database and have in my subs-Auth:

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// Any alias URLs?  This is mainly for use with frames, etc.
if (!empty($modSettings['forum_alias_urls']))
{
$aliases = explode(',', $modSettings['forum_alias_urls']);

$temp = $boardurl;
foreach ($aliases as $alias)
{
// Fake the $boardurl so we can set a different cookie.
$alias = strtr(trim($alias), array('http://' => '', 'https://' => ''));
$boardurl = 'http://' . $alias;

$cookie_url = url_parts(!empty($modSettings['localCookies']), !empty($modSettings['globalCookies']));

if ($cookie_url[0] == '')
$cookie_url[0] = strtok($alias, '/');

setcookie($cookiename, $data, time() + $cookie_length, $cookie_url[1], $cookie_url[0], 0);
}

$boardurl = $temp;
}

But they're still not sharing the cookies.

I solved the background color issue anyway by just using a 1 pixel color repeated.

[Kindred]

as far as I know, you can not actually share cookies across multiple domains.
sub-domains, YES... actual domains, no.

My company did this for their forum sites back when RC3 was out... and got everything running properly except the cookies.  If you would be interested in releasing it as an official, free, modification (BSD licensed), I will send you the code they used - you can modify it as needed to work on 2.0.3 and package it as a mod...

[emanuele]

The code above (taken from Subs-Auth.php) should set the cookies for any domain listed in the "hidden" setting "forum_alias_urls".

Sorry, never used that funzion, without putting my hands on it I can't tell you much more...

[Aaron10]

as far as I know, you can not actually share cookies across multiple domains.
sub-domains, YES... actual domains, no.

But what if the forums are all under the same IP address (since they're all addon domain names in my case)?

[Kindred]

That doesn't matter...   cookies are identified by domain, regardless of the IP

[Aaron10]

Well that's a bummer.

Do you know if that code you spoke of works with 1.1.X?

[Kindred]

No, the code we worked on was done for 2.0 rc3
It should be fairly easy to port up to 2.0.3, but back porting to 1.1.x would be much more difficult

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

If you are using SMF 2.0 I would suggest you to try Portamx Subforum Mod instead. 

[Kindred]

aharis, that will not work across domains... only across subdomains

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

I am using the mod and use it successfully on both domain and subdomain. But that doesn't matter, he wants it for 1.1 branch which is not supported by the said mod.

[Aaron10]

Yeah I'll just leave it as is. I have another question though, how would I setup separate meta description since they all share the same index.template.php? Can a separate file be attached or can it be done in settings or root index.php?

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

Basically, I do not know what you have done at this stage so to give further idea as to that is quite impossible.

You can look further here: http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?action=search;basic_search=meta

[Arantor]

And if they're the same content, you'll get penalised by search engines to boot.

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

Exactly.