Multiple forums, multiple domains, same members
 

What I'm trying to do:
I have several good forum domain names that all share a common theme. I would like to network all of these sites together so members and visitors can browse seemlessly when moving from one forum to another.

Requirements:
- All of the forums should share the same members. When a visitor signs up with one site, their username, avatar, signature and other profile information should work site wide.
- Cookie handling should be network wide. Switching from one forum domain to another should not require a user login again.
- Forum/Subforum/Thread/Post URLs should be domain specific dependant on current domain. If someone switches from forum1.com to something on forum2.com, the URLs should not still read Forum1.com/whatever
- Certain forums (ex: a general chat forum) should be caple of being displayed across multiple forums so someones post on forum1.com/generalchat will also show up in forum2.com/generalchat (and vise versa)

Wish List:
- Ideally we would be able to find a way to do this on a single instalation of vB. We do understand we may need to buy multiple vB licenses to operate on multiple domains legally, but the thought of having to upgrade, modify, and maintain 8+ forums indivdually isn't to pleasing.
- Ideally this solution should be easy enough to upgrade to work with future versions of vB. We would rather not be stuck with a solution that exploits a bug in the vB code and be stuck with having to decide whether or not to upgrade and break the functionality or our forums, or leave potential security holes open.

Network Structure example:
Domain 1
--Forum 1
----Sub-forum 1 (used for multiple domains/forums)
------Sub-forum 2 (used for multiple domains/forums)
------Sub-forum 3 (used for multiple domains/forums)
----Sub-forum 4
------Sub-forum 5
------Sub-forum 6
----Sub-forum 7
------Sub-forum 8
------Sub-forum 9

Domain 2
--Forum 2
----Sub-forum 1 (used for multiple domains/forums)
------Sub-forum 2 (used for multiple domains/forums)
------Sub-forum 3 (used for multiple domains/forums)
----Sub-forum 10
------Sub-forum 11
------Sub-forum 12
----Sub-forum 13
------Sub-forum 14
------Sub-forum 15

Domain 3
--Forum 3
...etc...

The Question:
Is vB capable of doing the above? If so, what would be the best solution to accomplish all of this?

I have exactly the same questions. Plus I want to know if it is possible to have the different domains show vBulletins in different languages.

The forums that will not be shared are non-active and are only accessible from a link, so that could help I guess.

Bump!

Please.

surely it would be easier for you to have all your domains pointing to one set of forums?

then you have everything you listed above without any modifications :p

I've read something a while back that this may be possible in vB 4.0....

it's something I also need, and would be VERY useful

I was looking for this as well!!:up:

Anyone found an answer? I've been asking around for weeks.

I am looking for this as well ... me click subscribe :)

Maybe what you can do is setup domain1 as you normally do, then for domain2 you setup a redirect to:

http://www.domain2.com/forumdisplay.php?f=71 (or whatever the forum url is for domain2)

so domain2 is actually an alias for domain1 so you still have domain2.com in the url bar...

I'm sure you can also install VB on each domain and point to the same database, but then you may run into a licensing issue on that one.

There is no easy way to do all of what you want. You cannot share cookies across domains, and unless you do quite a bit of hacking, you cannot have multiple vb sites share the user tables.