Major Additions - CERBERUS: 1 vB4: runs multiple domains with custom styles, forums, universal login

***Attention: This product is currently UNSUPPORTED***

We would like to release an Alpha version of the vBulletin4 Cerberus product. This product allows you to create one vBulletin4 installation which can power unlimited number of domains and sub-domains; while allowing to customize each domain differently to make it look like different sites or sections. Domains will have one universal admincp and user login information.

***Example***
www.supercoolautoforum.com - main site, all forums
ferarri.supercoolautoforum.com - custom style and forums, same login
bmw.supercoolautoforum.com- custom style and forums, same login
honda.supercoolautoforum.com - custom style and forums, same login
supercoolmotorcycleforum.com - custom style and forums, same login

*** Why are you releasing this, I want more features?! ***

This is a very simple product; we believe that the basic functionality provided in this product will satisfy a lot of communities - and since the product is simple - it will be easy to extend it and modify it to work for your custom community requirements.

Overview of Current Features:

• One shared installation of vBulletin 4
• One shared user account on all domains
• Custom Style for each domain
• Custom Forum listing for each domain

Known Issues:

• CMS and Blogs are currently not configured to have special domain-specific categories and sections. CMS is shared across all sites although the appearance will be different for each domain.

Project Contributors: s.lauderdale;m.biddle;a.ahn; anders

[thenetbox]

Another neat option would be to have forum manager categorize all subforums by site (maybe on different pages)

[Craig2]

Do you offer professional installation service? Got some problems with the navbar links, as it uses sometimes the domain, which is entered in the vbulletin acp (i am using vbseo)...

[Alfa1]

Originally Posted by KW802

That is what I am thinking of for me as well but before I started the next step of working on any code I figured I'd see what others thought.


Currently is the keyword.

If you take a look at my Cerberus test site (CinVin / Verizon Talk / Lower Pottsgrove) for the bottom left style selector, you'll see what I've been up to today. The site is now configured to allow users to change styles. Normally this would be turned off for Cerberus since Cerberus would force a single style. Instead I have it so you can specify multiple style IDs in the Cerberus ACP settings to allow for multiple styles per domain. This will allow admins to have as many styles as they want for each domain to be available to the user.

For those three sites I have four styles 'checked' as being selectable by the user, a unique style for each site and then the (currently) shared mobile style for all sites. That means inside of the ACP Style Manager I have a total of 4 styles turned on that can be selected by the user but I have Cerberus configured to only allow specific styles per domain. That way when a visitor on the CinVin site they can see the CinVin full style and the shared mobile style but none of the other full styles for the other domain. When on VZ Talk the user gets the full style for that site (the red design) and the mobile style but not the CinVin style. Then the same for the last domain. Just like category IDs that can be either unique per domain or shared amongst domains, style IDs can be set the same.

The next step was deciding how much further to take it with the mobile style, whether to allow a unique mobile style setting per domain or to just assume that the same mobile style will be used on all domains but then to add a setting to change the mobile style's log per domain.

At this point in the game I can't see too many admins doing a per domain mobile style, as opposed to a per domain mobile style logo. But... I know, I know, the right thing to do would be to allow for the first option, of a specific mobile style per domain, since that gives the most flexibility. I won't have a chance to work on it again until this weekend so I'll see then what direction it takes me.

... and, yes, the mobile style detection does work if you visit the sites on a mobile device.

You Sir, are amazing. Thank you!

[sticky]

Hoping maybe someone can help me with this. I have the what's new set to show what is going on from all domains.

Problem is, cross domain navigation doesn't work right. When clicking to be taken to the first unread post on a different domain from the one you are on it takes you to the first page instead, necessitating a second click to view first unread. Any idea how to resolve this?

[sticky]

^ Bump

[shri]

Quick question - does anyone have an nginx / php-fpm config to share? If not I'll spend some time looking at it ..

[j66chevell]

I have this mod installed and it seems to be working.

For a mobile skin, I would want all my domains to be one skin, but I want one skin anyways, which leads to my question.

Can some one tell what I would do to make this change only the skin background or logo for each domain?

What I have is a clan gaming site and each subdomain will represent a game and it's forums. I want the skins to be user selectable among multiple skins and just change the logo or background picture for each game.

Currently, if I want to produce this effect, it looks like I would have to make 10 versions of each skin (1 for each game) or about 30+ skins total (3+ skins x 10 games), correct?

[amagab]

Any idea on when this mod will leave Beta stage.....and/or become supported?

[j66chevell]

Originally Posted by amagab

Any idea on when this mod will leave Beta stage.....and/or become supported?

That will likely never happen, somewhere in the posts, someone stated the likely reasons why.

[GTX2]

Can't get this work with subdomains.
What should i be doing wrong.... ?

I'm testing some updates and some hacks in a testing board directory ( mydomain.com/test )
Installed this hack. Created one sub-domain in cpanel called english.mydomain.com and gave the document root the same dir as my testing board (public_html/test)

Then, went to hack options and did the settings explained:

[english.mydomain.com]
bbtitle=English
bburl=english.mydomain.com
homeurl=english.mydomain.com
catids=7,15,25
styleid=1
cookiedomain=.mydomain.com
facebookappid=Your_appid_here
facebooksecret=Your_fb_secret_here

And then i just get a 500 internal server error.
If i browse to mydomain.com/test i can see my normal testing board....

What am i missing?