Multisite example - Minisite using URL prefix and domain

This page provides two examples of how to create minisites:

• Using a shortened URL to use within an existing domain.
• Using a sub-domain.

Use case

We have content for a minisite that resides deep in the site hierarchy at /comics/belgian-comics/morris/lucky-luke/jolly-jumper. This page node and its subpages should be served as a minisite.

Assume that there is already a site named site named comics-site, mapped to the domain www.best-comics-net, mapped to the content /comics. This means requesting the domain with no further paths returns the rendered page of the node /comics. (See Multisite example - Two sites with different domains.)

Now we look at two solutions for the jolly-jumper minisite:

• Shorten the URL and serve /comics/belgian-comics/morris/lucky-luke/jolly-jumper from the URL www.best-comics.net/jollyjumper
• Use a new subdomain and serve /comics/belgian-comics/morris/lucky-luke/jolly-jumper from jollyjumper.best-comics.net

Setting up content

The tree below shows the page nodes.

In the following examples we look at the page node /comics/belgian-comics/morris/lucky-luke/jolly-jumper and its subpages. 

Shortening the URL with handlePrefix within an existing site definition

Keep in mind that this example assumes that the site definition comics-site already exists. Have a look at the site definition setup in Multisite example - Two sites with different domains.

This is the existing comics-site site definition with an additional node under mappings:

To get a short URL, we add another node under <site>/mappings. In this example, we add the node /comics-site/mappings/jolly-jumper.

Now test it: www.best-comics.net/jollyjumper. It works!

Using a new subdomain with a distinct site

In this solution you enable access to the jolly-jumper minisite using the subdomain jollyjumper.best-comics.net.

To do this, you configure a new site definition:

Note that using a distinct site for the minisite means that you can also apply another theme to it. In this example, the jolly-jumper-site uses the jolly-jumper-theme. The jolly-jumper-theme has a CSS that applies a different font (compared to the the comics-theme on the comics-site).

Extending the existing comic site:

If the new jolly-jumper-site should reuse items defined on the comics-site - for instance i18n and templates - you can define the jolly-jumper-site in a way that it extends the comic-site:

Configuring the environment 

 To enable accessing the Magnolia instance with the new subdomain - you must configure your environment accordingly, see mapping multiple domains to the application server.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName www.best-comics.net
    ProxyPass / ajp://localhost:8010/
    ProxyPassReverse / ajp://localhost:8010/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName www.best-vinyl.net
	ProxyPass / ajp://localhost:8010/
    ProxyPassReverse / ajp://localhost:8010/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName jollyjumper.best-comics.net
    ProxyPass / ajp://localhost:8010/
    ProxyPassReverse / ajp://localhost:8010/
</VirtualHost>

Testing

Now try to access jollyjumper.best-comics.net. It works!