Ok, I have a single blog running. Everything seems good so far. What I want to do is this;
Convert my single to a blog under a multi. I want a multi with my.domain.com/blogs and my current site to be my.domain.com/blogs/vernsblog. However, this creates a problem. My current destination in my.domain.com/vernsblog. Can I create the multi, set it up with /blogs/vernsblog and have my.domain.com/vernsblog also?

Also, what steps do I need to take to roll my single to multi, either with or without the scenario above?

Thanks!
Vern

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Vern H Gill

I don't think you can do both without getting into IIS redirection and maybe a special Web.Config. I would guess it could be done, I just don't know how to do it.

Converting is easy though. Install .Text to the blogs directory, setup a subdirectory for vernsblog, put an empty Default.aspx page in there and use the multi 2 web.config (don't forget to change the host value in web.config too). Then just alter the blog_config database table to have the host be my.domain.com (which it should be already) and make the application versblog, but dont' create a new blog using dtotexthelper to do this, just make the change directly. Also, set the BlogGroup to an odd number to have it show on the aggregate page.

If I do the conversion like you mention, will I still retain my posts? I mean, there are only 2, but will I lose them?

Also, after giving it some more thought, I don't really need the confusion I discussed. I can just do my.domain.com/vernblog, my.domain.com/gracieblog, etc. There's nothing else running on the webserver but Outlook Web Access. That shouldn't be affected if I get there directly with my.domain.com/exchange, right?

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Vern H Gill

Well, that's different. Do you want an aggregate page at my.domain.com with single blogs at each name? Or just a bunch of single blogs one for each name? If it's aggregate, then you need to use multi 1, if singles then each needs single2 and you have to put all the .Text files in each one.

No, you won't loose your posts either way.

What I now wnat to do is this;
Aggregator page at http://my.domain.com
individual blogs at http://my.domain.com/blog1, http://my.domain.com/blog2, etc.
Or, more to the point;
http://my.domain.com/vernsblog
http://my.domain.com/gracieblog
http://my.domain.com/coleblog

If I do this, just so I understand this and what the results will be, I should have a page at http://my.domain.com that shows http://my.domain.com/vernsblog, http://my.domain.com/gracieblog, http://my.domain.com/coleblog. Is that right?

And, to do this, I create actual directories with a blank default.aspx for each blog, right? And, of course, change the blogID of http://my.domain.com in blog_config to 1, right? What about the aspinet dll thingy? Do I need that? Do I need a IIS virtual directory for each blog? Should it point to the actual directory?

I only ask this cuz I read something about pointing all blogs to the same drive:\dottextdir\dottextweb.

My only question is this;
Will this negatively affect my ability to have access to http://my.domain.com/exchange?

Thanks again for your help!

Vern

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Vern H Gill

Also on this;
When I switch to multi 2 or multi2 config, should I change this;
<!-- Aggregate Blog Stuff -->
<add key="AggregateTitle" value = "A .Text Community" />
<add key="AggregateUrl" value = "http://localhost/dottextweb" />
<add key="AggregateDescription" value = ".NET by .Text" />
<add key="AggregateHost" value = "localhost" />

to this;
<add key="AggregateTitle" value = "verns blog" />
<add key="AggregateUrl" value = "http://my.domain.com" />
<add key="AggregateDescription" value = "blah" />
<add key="AggregateHost" value = "my.domain.com" />

I.E., leave off the trailing vdir of /vernsblog

Or, am I totally screwed up?

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Vern H Gill

K, you want to start with multi 1. You want to put my.domain.com in as the host for each one in the blog_config table and in the Web.Config as the aggregate host. Then drop a blank default.aspx in each directory and make the application the directory name in the blog_config. You don't need to change any of the blog_id's, in fact if you change your's you will mess up the content. You don't need a virtual directory for each. In fact once the virtual directory is setup for the aggregate site, you don't need to touch IIS at all. It might affect the exchange directory, but I don't know IIS well enough to tell it not to touch it.

Ok, I think I got it but one thing; For each blog I need to create a physical directory with a blank default.aspx, and point the blog_config application to that physical directory? No need to make any any changes to IIS?

Thanks!
Vern

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Vern H Gill

That's the way I do it. the physical directory is the individual blog name and goes in the dottexthelper or blog_config as the application. The host stays the same for all blogs.

There is a way to do it through IIS to make it handle things through asp.net by default by I've never done it. I believe the wiki has some instructions on this.

Something I'm not clear on and should've asked earlier;

What should the entry in IIS be for?
should it be a vdir to
drive:\dtblogs\dottextweb named dtblogs?
does it matter what it's called? Actually, more to the point, does IIS need to have drive:\dtblogs\dottextweb as the root?

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Vern H Gill

Ok, more than one question...


Do the physical dirs for each blog need to be in drive:\dtblogs\dottextweb?
i.e. drive:\dtblogs\dottextweb\blog1, drive:\dtblogs\dottextweb\blog2, etc.?

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Vern H Gill

Well now I am really stumped;

I am testing this out, and it ain't workin'.

I created a new database, and ran the fulldb file through it. Yes, it was ansi already.

K, I created a new website in IIS, which is ok since it runs on port 8180 instead. So, I create this website. I put the homedir as d:\dtblogs\DottextWeb. Edited multi1, made "AggregateUrl" http://my.domain.com:8180, and "AggregateHost" my.domain.com:8180.
Then I create D:\dtblogs\DottextWeb\vernosblog, and put a blank default.aspx in it.
I use dottexthelper like so;
dottexthelper myuser mypass [email protected] my.domain.com:8180 vernosblog true

I got "The blog was created", and even double checked everything in blog_config. Looked great, so I tried to open it in firefox.
"Page can not be found"

What gives? Did I miss something? Did I do something wrong or in the wrong order?

I started thinking maybe there was supposed to be 2 entries in blog_config, 1 for the "community" or aggregator, and one for the first blog. So, I added another row;

blogID 0, application = '', host = 'my.domain.com:8180'
blogID 1, application = 'vernosblog', host = 'my.domain.com:8180'

That didn't work either.


HELP!!! Apparently I am too stupid to figure this out!

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Vern H Gill

I don't think you want the port to be part of the host value.

There is no blog_config entry for the aggregate page, so dump blogid = 0. You also made the vdir to d:\dtblogs\dottextweb right?