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

[KW802]

Originally Posted by iBaker

... So I am at a loss as to why the mod doesn't work properly with styles for my site

And do your ACP settings match the ones I posted?

[Golzarion]

Thanks "KW802" for helping to improve this wonderful mod.
/
When a register user trying to visit the forum or thread that needs the moderation permission he/she does NOT see the " vb no permission page " !! and he /she just gets the " Page load error " in the browser :" ERROR : The page isn't redirecting properly "
is there any fixes ?

[iBaker]

Originally Posted by KW802

And do your ACP settings match the ones I posted?

Basically yes, they do KW...I don't have hometitle and keywords in mine and some of my categories are used in each domain...these are the only differences

[KW802]

Originally Posted by iBaker

Basically yes, they do KW...I don't have hometitle and keywords in mine and some of my categories are used in each domain...these are the only differences

What about the style settings... of turning off the option of allowing users to change their styles? Those are the ones that are likely your issue with having the styles change on you.

[New Joe]

I would love to be able to understand what this mod really does?

[Gnoll]

Main Domain : www.mmobrowser.com
Forum : www.mmobrowser.com/forum/
Wildcard Domains allowed for .mmobrowser.com

[wow.mmobrowser.com/forum]
bbtitle=WoW-MB-Forum
bburl=wow.mmobrowser.com/forum
homeurl=www.mmobrowser.com/forum/world-warcraft-warcraft-8/
catids=8
styleid=3
cookiedomain=www.mmobrowser.com/forum/
facebookappid=...
facebooksecret=...
----------------
What's wrong ?

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by New Joe

I would love to be able to understand what this mod really does?

It lets you run multiple separate forums off 1 install of vBulletin so each forum can share the same users, can share some forums (optional), and otherwise is only a single install to upgrade and maintain...

One of the hardest parts of opening a new forum is getting people to register, so this would let all your existing users be automatically registered at your new forum.

Just remember that even though it's one install vBulletin requires a license for each unique domain.

[Alfa1]

Can anyone please answer these questions? I would much appreciate it:

Originally Posted by Alfa1

1. Both domains have a different CMS homepage. But how do you hide the CMS sections that belong to domain A, from users that are browsing on domain B and vice versa?
2. All CMS comments reside in one and the same forum. So the comments relating to the articles of both domains will reside in the same CMS comments forum. And that will make comments from both domains visible on 'new posts'. I dont want users on domain A to see comments related to the topic on domain B. I dont know how to resolve that one. Does anyone know?
3. It seems that the CMS comments forum needs a category above it and that needs to be activated on every domain. Otherwise CMS comments do not seem to work on each domain. Is there any way to hide the comments forum, but show the comments in CMS?
4. Does anyone have a tip on how to hide the style of the other domain, while still showing several styles attributed to the domain the user is on?
5. When searching in quick search I get results from both domains. In cerberus settings Local Search Scope is ON. Is there any way to fix this?

Please let me know if I need to clarify any of the above.

[iBaker]

Originally Posted by KW802

What about the style settings... of turning off the option of allowing users to change their styles? Those are the ones that are likely your issue with having the styles change on you.

Thanks KW...Yes, I have my style settings the same as yours:

Originally Posted by KW802

If it helps any, I have "Allow Users To Change Styles" set to "No" and then I have the check boxes turned on for each of the styles that are associated to the various domains in the Cerberus configuration settings.

Also, if I may ask, how have you done your vba CMPS home pages so each domain has a different CMPS Home Page to land on?

[iBaker]

I have found an interesting way to use this mod that will suit my needs and have some preliminary testing and looks good. I am posting this just in case anyone else is interested and it may help them.

My site is setup using:
mydomain.net (the main domain)
mydomain.com.au
mydomain.ca
mydomain.us
mydomain.co.uk
etc

My Problems using this mod as is are:
1. The different styles seem to muck up after I log into the Admin panel (possibly just my site)
2. Many of my mods are licensed to one domain so I have to force users to the specific domain that has the license for the mod and then force them back to the domain of their choice
3. Mods like vba Dynamics etc requires hard coding of domain (have tried ../ but doesn't work properly)
4. If you have a mod that you want to be different per domain you can't install the mod several times in the one vb install to get it different per domain (eg Google Map to display Australia for .com.au, display UK for .co.uk, display USA for .us etc)
5. If I set my site up with the way I wanted to with multiple installs of the same mods that are tailored to the different domains I would end up with over 1,300 tables

So what I have done does require extra work and perhaps defeats the full purpose of this mod but gives you far more control over having different domains...it does cost more as well because you do need separate vb licenses.

I have several domains which are their own accounts in cPanel...no parked or sub domains...they are domains in their own right.

Each domain has a vb installation.

I installed this mod in each vb instance in each domain

Except for my main domain of .net I then renamed several tables in each of the other domains to table_old...user, userfield, usertextfield, pm, pmtext, pmreceipt, visitormessage, userlist, profilevisitor, sigparsed, sigpic, customprofilepic, customavatar, session etc

I then created a table "View" of those renamed tables using my main domain database...this basically shares the same users, pms, userfields etc across all sites. The Cerberus mod takes care of the cookie, salt etc.

So any user that registers, logs in or out is registered across all sites, logged in to all sites or logs out of all sites.

As I said it is more work as you have an Admin Control Panel per site and you need a vb license per site but it gives you complete control over all your sites in tailoring them to exactly what you want.

The other great thing with this is that the Search Engines treat each one of your sites completely separate giving you the opportunity top saturate Google placing a lot more.

So this post is just as perhaps and alternative for those that this mod, like me, doesn't exactly tick all the boxes 101%