New Message: How do you add a domain?

[webmaster at userland.com]

A new message was posted:

Address: http://manila.userland.com/discuss/msgReader$1660

By: Matt Deatherage (frontier at gcsf.com)

OK, I know this is supposed to be dead-solid simple, but in a few years of trying, I can /never/ get this to work correctly.

Let's say that Manila is serving a site at the domain myniftysite.com from a database named myNiftyManilaWebsite, and that it all works fine. In config.mainresponder.domains, the entry for "myniftysite.com" is the address of myNiftyManilaWebsite. When I go to <http://myfrontierserver.com:5336/settings?page=1.4 and look at the domains, It's listed like this:

*myniftysite.com:*

<nobrhttp://myniftysite.com/ [1]</nobr
myNiftyManilaWebsite
address

(I have no idea if the site will let the table tags through unneutered or not; I replaced the checkbox in the form with a PNG of a blank checkbox we already have on our web site.)

So, on that same page, now I want to add the newly-purchased "myniftysite.net" to serve the same domain. I have three fields: Domain, Path, and Object.

It seems fairly clear that "Object" should be "myNiftyManilaWebsite", but after that, nothing seems to work. If I enter "myniftysite.org", Manila creates a new entry in config.mainresponder.domains for it, but it has a siteTree table instead of a simple address, and the entry on the Domains setting page looks like this:

*myniftysite.org:*

<nobr/ [2]</nobr
myNiftyManilaWebsite
address

I run Frontier behind Apache, so port 8100 is the raw Frontier port, and the link in the table links to /that/ instead of to the correct domain name, like the others do. Also, the visible link is not for the Web site - it's just "/".

That never looks right, so then I try entering a Domain of "http://myniftysite.org/". No go - that confuses Manila all to hell, it won't even display the page properly anymore. In config.mainresponder.domains, I see that it's created an entry /named/ "http://myniftysite.org" instead of "myniftysite.org". I delete that by hand and then I try again, using the raw domain name as at first but a path of "/". That bollixes it up in all kinds of new ways.

This is where I give up, go to the server machine. open config.mainresponder.domains, copy the entry for "myniftysite.com" and paste it back in, creating a duplicate, and renaming it "myniftysite.org". Save, go back to the settings page, and presto! Everything works like it should.

/Why can't I make this work from the browser?/ Given that there are /four paragraphs/ of explanation above the text entry fields, why can't it just say how to add a domain name for an existing site?

I have /never/ been able to make this page do anything that makes even a modest amount of sense to me - it's as if it were written in English but really not, so whatever seems to make sense just goes completely off in the weeds. What is right for "Domain" and what is right for "Path" if you know the URL and the object database address?

How do I add a simple new domain for an existing site?

[1] http://myniftysite.com/
[2] http://myniftysite.org:8100/

This is a Manila site... http://manila.userland.com/.