Reach out, we'd love to hear from you!
Drupal multisite lets you run several websites with one Drupal installation, making site management easier. But, like any solution, it requires careful planning, thought, and consideration.
If you’re toying with the idea of Drupal multisite installation and sifting through the portfolios of Drupal website development companies, you’re in the right place. In the next five minutes, we’ll break down everything you need to know about Drupal multisite configuration. Key questions tackled inside are:
So, let’s dive right in!
A Drupal multisite installation allows users to run multiple sites on a single Drupal codebase. A Drupal website development company achieves this setup by creating individual folders for each website within the /sites/ directory. For example:
Each folder contains a unique settings.php file and communicates with its own database. The folder also contains binary files, such as images and uploads. Whenever a request is executed, Drupal determines the website based on the domain and maps it to the appropriate folder, loading the corresponding database, configuration, modules, themes, and content to serve the correct website.
Additionally, module and theme access can be controlled by placing them in specific folders, ensuring that only certain websites can use them.
By leveraging a Drupal multisite configuration, businesses can eliminate complexity and simplify management and maintenance of the core Drupal ecosystem while saving time and money. Here’s a closer look at the advantages of this approach.
1. Feature Reusability: The prime advantage of a Drupal multisite architecture is the ease of deploying features. Once a feature is developed for one site, it can be easily deployed across multiple sites. This helps a Drupal website development company do away with the need of reinventing the wheel and ensures consistency.
2. Theme Inheritance: With Drupal multisite development, users can create a base theme and inherit it across the entire ecosystem, ensuring a consistent look and feel. Theme inheritance, being one of the crowning benefits of a Drupal multisite, reduces the time spent on front-end development as it automates theme deployment and update.
3. Reduced Code and Maintenance: The single Drupal codebase approach significantly cuts down the need of managing code. The multisite setup makes it easier to maintain and update the codebase, as bug fixes and enhancements can be deployed to all sites simultaneously.
4. Lower Technological Debt: The multisite approach helps reduce technological debt, allowing users to work within a centralized system and distributing features as well as updates across all sites. Eliminating the repeated patchwork on multiple codebases, the approach leads to greater flexibility and future readiness, while mitigating potential issues down the line.
5. Faster Website Launches: A built-in installation profile, a staple for a Drupal multisite configuration, enables rapid website launches—often within hours—by leveraging a predefined setup. This allows businesses to deploy new websites with minimal IT involvement, reducing time-to-market and increasing agility.
6. Cost-Effective Maintenance: Since all sites share a single codebase, the overall maintenance costs are significantly reduced. Operations like security updates, feature enhancements, or bug fixes need only be applied once, and they automatically propagate across all sites, ensuring consistency and saving time and resources.
7. Improved Quality Control: Development teams are generally more careful with a multisite setup, as they understand that their work will be used across multiple websites. This encourages the creation of higher-quality, more flexible, and long-lasting solutions. Additionally, it is easier to justify investments in refactoring or improvements, as the benefits apply to all sites within the network, not just one.
Already know the advantages of Drupal multisite? Now, explore this comprehensive guide on how to set up a multisite network.
Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up a Drupal Multisite
This guide throws a light on the steps to configure a Drupal multisite. It covers basic configuration, but notably, there are other options like HTTPS support, different web servers, and databases, which eliminates complexity and automates much of the process, accelerating outcomes and ensuring secure configurations.
Start by installing Drupal on the server as the root site for the multisite. Follow the steps as outlined below.
Apache Virtual Host Example
Step Two: Configure the First Site in the Multisite
Now that the root site is ready, start configuring additional sites.
Create a separate virtual host for site1, or alternatively, use the root site’s virtual host and add site1 as a ServerAlias.
Copy the default settings file from the root site to site1:
Step Three: Enable Per-Site Modules
Users might want specific modules to be available only on certain sites within the multisite setup.
Drush, a command-line tool for Drupal, is invaluable when managing a multisite setup.
Run Commands with Site Alias
To run a command for a specific site, use the site alias with the drush command: drush @sub1 updb
A Drupal multisite configuration acts as a catalyst of business performance when used effectively. Refer to the image below for the best use cases of Drupal multisite.
While Drupal multisite can be a powerful solution, it isn’t always the best approach. Below are situations where a multisite setup might not be the ideal choice:
When deciding whether or not to implement a multisite Drupal setup, several key factors come into play, impacting how businesses can manage multiple sites running on the CMS. Below are some crucial considerations to keep in mind.
A Drupal multisite brings a bonanza of benefits, including efficiency and reliability. Each site can share a single codebase, allowing users to update simultaneously while saving a great deal of time and resources. However, it’s pivotal to ensure that every site has a database of its own, maintaining security and manageability it needs. This way, issues like data corruption and malicious attacks can be kept at bay, all while isolating other sites in the ecosystem.
Using separate databases for each site strengthens security and simplifies migration. However, maintaining databases for all sites individually can introduce risks, as a problem on one site can latch onto the other sites, affecting the data and making troubleshooting as well as recovery far more difficult.
Streamlining and managing updates across a multisite Drupal setup requires users to run the update script for each site, even after core or module updates. While rolling out updates becomes simpler within a shared codebase, ensuring every site performs consistently and delivers the anticipated performance gets tricky and requires attention. This, in turn, turns time-consuming if done manually.
A shared codebase, while saving disk space, can attract problems when sites use different modules. A bug in a module that only affects some sites could disrupt the entire multisite network. This is why a shared codebase works best when sites have similar configurations, sharing modules and settings. Sites with customized configurations may face greater difficulties in maintaining consistency and compatibility across the network.
Using dedicated platforms for multisite management can significantly reduce the complexity of updating and maintaining multiple sites. Having such a platform can easily queue all sites for updates, perform rollbacks if updates fail, and streamline the management process. Without such tools, however, managing multisite configurations manually requires a solid understanding of Drupal and command-line operations.
Drupal multisite setups are considered ideal when each of the participants share similar configurations and modules. Sites with different modules, themes, or settings adds complexity, making maintenance and troubleshooting more challenging.
All things said and acknowledged, a Drupal multisite setup is key to unlocking efficiency and productivity in the sphere of software development.
Not only can it help developers reduce the time it takes to code, but it can also build websites with higher quality. Plus, it can effectively aid in accelerating the development cycles and reducing cost overhead.
There’s a caveat, though. The approach requires greater planning and technical competence to ensure successful implementation. Without proper coordination and a well-thought-out strategy, the benefits of a multisite setup may not be fully realized, and the complexity of managing multiple sites can outweigh the advantages.
To set up a Drupal multisite, ensure your server meets Drupal's standard requirements: a compatible web server (e.g., Apache or Nginx), PHP, and a supported database like MySQL or PostgreSQL. Adequate server resources (CPU, RAM, storage) are essential to handle multiple sites efficiently.
Enhance performance by enabling caching mechanisms, utilizing a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for static assets, and optimizing shared resources. For security, keep Drupal core and modules updated, enforce strict user permissions, and ensure each site's configuration files have appropriate access controls.
Utilize Drupal's multisite feature to manage multiple sites from a single codebase, allowing centralized updates for core and shared modules. Employ tools like Drush for command-line management to streamline updates and maintenance tasks across all sites simultaneously.
Leverage Industry-Leading Expertise for High-Impact Solutions
Reduce Development Roadblocks with Specialized Talent
Expand Your Team with the Right Expertise, On Demand
We stand by our work, and you will too!
