Two or more shops on one computer

[hexik]

I am running on my Linux computer different domains and web sites for different customers and I want start for some domains separate shops. One solution is install for every shop individual database and directory with program.

 

But for easy program updates I want keep only one common directory with program code and setup only different configuration files and databases for every shop.

 

1. It is possible?

 

2. Which files should be individually configured to use domain specific configuration file and maybe style setting?Or there is some solution with symbolic links from domains to common program code?Or use URL translation in httpd.conf?

[Guest]

1. Barely. You have to realize though that your customers will not be able to customize the layout of their stores that much, because much of the layout is duplicated across all the files in the root directory. I think that you will find it much easier to split across separate directories (even if you have to do separate upgrades). There is quite a bit of work that would need to go into setting this up. Work which you may have to redo if an upgrade breaks it.

 

2. You would need to modify application_top.php to use different configure.php files for each store. I suppose that you could do this based on hostname. I'm not sure of the command in PHP that tells you as what hostname the store was accessed (although I'm sure that there is one).

 

I would still recommend against this. One of the major advantages of osCommerce is that you can individualize the code for your store. Under your setup, you would lose this. Upgrading a stock store is very easy. You copy out the configure.php files, update the database, copy in the new code files, and put the configure.php files back. The hardest part is updating the configure.php files to reflect changes. It seems to me that you are undertaking a large project to avoid a smaller project.

 

Just my $.02,

Matt