piThis post is part of a weekly series by the a href="http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/enterprise-edition" title="Magento Enterprise Edition"Magento Enterprise Edition/a subscription support team covering tips, tricks and hints to some of the most common, and uncommon, issues as submitted by support customers./i
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One of Magento#8217;s most superior strengths are its capabilities for scaling to support multi-store and multi-language retailing all from the same backend.nbsp; In this tutorial, we will be showing you how to take advantage of Magento?s scalability by creating multiple websites with unique domain names sharing the same product catalog. (b***NOTE: Each store can also be configured to offer a unique product catalog as well./b)
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For this example, we#8217;ll be attempting to set up bdomain1.com/b, bdomain2.com/b and bdomain3.com/b.
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Generally, Magento is installed into the folder i/var/www/http/i, as per the a href="http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-installation-guide"Magento Installation Guide/a, and you can find more information related to the initial setup and configuration of any Magento installation there.nbsp; We aren#8217;t going to through an full blown installation right now though, and for our purposes, we are going to presume that the Magento instance has already been installed in the server.
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We#8217;ll be dividing the process into steps based on the areas of configuration we will need to deal with?namely, Categories, Store Configuration in Magento Admin, Store Configuration in the Server.
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h3b1: Categories/b/h3p
/bFirst, will need to create our Categories.nbsp; Since all three websites will be sharing the same catalog, we will be using the default root Category in iCatalog - Categories - Manage Categories/i and will be creating our categories under that root category (i.e. Clothing, Electronics, etc.).
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img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/categories.png" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="205" height="192" /
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These categories (Clothing, Electronics) should be set as both ?bIs Active/b? from the iGeneral Information/i tab and ?bIs Anchor/b? from the iDisplay Settings/i tab for them to appear on the frontend of your Magento shop.nbsp; (b***NOTE: If the websites will not be sharing the same catalog, a Root Category must be created for each website.nbsp; Thus, if there are 3 websites, there will be 3 Root Categories with subcategories under them./b)
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h3b2: Store Configuration in the Magento Admin/b/h3
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1. Now that we have created our Categories, it?s time to create our websites by going to iSystem - Manage Stores/i and clicking the ?Create Website? button.
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ul class="disc"
libName/b ? domain name of our new website/li
libCode/b ? a parameter that will be used in configuring the Apache web server to point to that particular domain name/li/ul
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img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/new_website.png" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="519" height="191" /
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2. Once the website has been created, we#8217;ll create the store corresponding to this website by clicking on the ?Create Store? button in iSystem - Manage Stores/i.
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ul class="disc"
libWebsite/b ? website to which this store will be associated/li
libName/b ? the same as the website name/li
libRoot Category/b ? the root category that will be used for this store. (Refer to Step 1 for Details)/li/ul
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img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/new_store.png" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="512" height="191" /
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3. Then, we create the store view which is the interface that the customer will be able to access on the frontend.nbsp; Click the ?Create Store View? button in iSystem - Manage Stores/i.
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ul class="disc"
libStore/b ? store to which this view will be associated/li
libName/b ? name of this store view (i.e. English Version, German Version, etc.)/li
libCode/b ? code for this store view/li
libStatus/b ? if enabled, this store view will be accessible from our frontend, otherwise, it will not be accessible/li
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img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/new_storeview.png" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="514" height="252" /
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4. After the Store has been created, we need to configure the bUnsecure Base URL/b and bSecure Base URL/b under iSystem - Configuration - General - Web/i.nbsp; Before we set their respective base URLs, we first need to ensure that the configuration scope is set to the domain1.com website to define which site we are working on.
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img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/admin_sys_config_scope.png" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="237" height="100" /
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Then, we modify the base URLs for both bUnsecure/b:
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img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/admin_sys_config_unsecured_base.png" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="670" height="62" /
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and bSecure/b:
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img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/admin_sys_config_secured_base.png" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="674" height="94" /
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with the corresponding domain name by unchecking the #8221;bUse default [STORE VIEW]/b#8221; checkbox and then save the configuration.
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5. Now we just repeat Steps 2-4 for the other two websites, bdomain2.com/b and bdomain3.com/b by replacing the fields with their respective information.
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h3b3: Store Configuration in the Server/b/h3
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1. Now we re-configure the Apache configuration file, ihttpd.conf/i, for all domains to set the bDocumentRoot/b to our Magento directory.nbsp; In this case, the directory is i/var/www/http/i:
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div class="codeblock"code
span style="color: #007700"lt;/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"VirtualHostnbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"*:/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"80/spanspan style="color: #007700"gt;br /nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"ServerAdminnbsp;webmaster/spanspan style="color: #007700"@/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain1/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"combr /nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;DocumentRootnbsp;nbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"/var//spanspan style="color: #0000BB"www/spanspan style="color: #007700"//spanspan style="color: #0000BB"httpbr /nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;ServerNamenbsp;domain0/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"combr //spanspan style="color: #007700"lt;//spanspan style="color: #0000BB"VirtualHost/spanspan style="color: #007700"gt;br /br /lt;/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"VirtualHostnbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"*:/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"80/spanspan style="color: #007700"gt;br /nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"ServerAdminnbsp;webmaster/spanspan style="color: #007700"@/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain2/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"combr /nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;DocumentRootnbsp;nbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"/var//spanspan style="color: #0000BB"www/spanspan style="color: #007700"//spanspan style="color: #0000BB"httpbr /nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;ServerNamenbsp;domain1/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"combr //spanspan style="color: #007700"lt;//spanspan style="color: #0000BB"VirtualHost/spanspan style="color: #007700"gt;br /br /lt;/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"VirtualHostnbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"*:/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"80/spanspan style="color: #007700"gt;br /nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"ServerAdminnbsp;webmaster/spanspan style="color: #007700"@/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain3/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"combr /nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;DocumentRootnbsp;nbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"/var//spanspan style="color: #0000BB"www/spanspan style="color: #007700"//spanspan style="color: #0000BB"httpbr /nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;ServerNamenbsp;domain2/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"combr //spanspan style="color: #007700"lt;//spanspan style="color: #0000BB"VirtualHost/spanspan style="color: #007700"gt;/span
/code/div
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2. Edit the b.htaccess/b file at i/var/www/http/.htaccess/i and add the following lines below:
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div class="codeblock"code
span style="color: #0000BB"SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;www\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain1\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_CODE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=nbsp;/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain1_combr /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;www\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain1\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_TYPE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"websitebr /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"^/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain1\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_CODE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain1_combr /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"^/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain1\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_TYPE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"websitebr /br /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;www\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain2\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_CODE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=nbsp;/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain2_combr /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;www\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain2\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_TYPE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"websitebr /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"^/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain2\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_CODE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain2_combr /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"^/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain2\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_TYPE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"websitebr /br /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;www\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain3\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_CODE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=nbsp;/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain3_combr /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;www\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain3\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_TYPE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"websitebr /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"^/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain3\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_CODE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain3_combr /SetEnvIfnbsp;Hostnbsp;/spanspan style="color: #007700"^/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"domain3\/spanspan style="color: #007700"./spanspan style="color: #0000BB"comnbsp;MAGE_RUN_TYPE/spanspan style="color: #007700"=/spanspan style="color: #0000BB"website/span
/code/div
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3. Restart Apache Server
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If you are on a Red Hat based distribution, you#8217;ll be able to type bservice apache restart/b.nbsp; For other distributions, you#8217;ll want to type bapachectl restart/b.nbsp; (b***NOTE: The second option here is different than b#8220;apachectl graceful#8221;/b which will run a graceful restart and reload configuration files, without terminating current connections.nbsp; We don#8217;t have any visitors to our site yet, so it#8217;s okay to do a b#8220;apachectl restart#8221;/b/b.)
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h3b4: We#8217;re Ready to Go!/b/h3
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After we#8217;ve complete all of these steps we should now see all 3 domains in our backend:
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img src="http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/manage_stores.png" style="border: 0;" alt="image" width="603" height="212" /
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All that#8217;s left now is to add products to the catalog and give each site a custom theme if we wish to do so.nbsp; Many people are taking advantage of Magento#8217;s powerful multi-store functionality, whether it#8217;s to set up stores with multiple languages, different catalogs and even the same catalogs (as in our example) with different front ends as a marketing vehicle.nbsp; No matter which you decide to use Magento#8217;s powerful features for, we hope this post will provide a good starting point to help you get there!
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