Elteto.net

Easily migrating multiple Drupal sites into one installation was just as easy as fixing an Access Control Module bug.

Installing a new Drupal site is no doubt addictive, but at the same time, realizing that probably I will keep all my sites with the same hosting provider, it was unnecessary to plant a new installation for each domain. Redirecting all my domains to one Drupal setup was a breeze; all I had to do was create the "domainname.com" subdirectory under the "files" directory, and copy a "settings.php" file for each domain, changing only the MySQL database login information and the root directory designation. I kept my add-on modules under "sites/all/modules", and all my add-on themes under "sites/all/themes", and in a matter of minutes, I had all the sites access to the same resources. Updates suddenly became even easier. I simply had to leave the "sites" directory untouched, and replace all the other files in the core installation with the new release. It is, of course, a common courtesy and good practice to put the whole site in maintenance mode.

In the past, I only had "book" conent types restricted to authenticated users, but now I tried to restrict some nodes of "page" type as well. This is where my first bug I have ever encountered with Drupal popped up. (I know, some Drupal pros may say I must not be a "power" or "heavy" user, but I have never claimed to be one...) Even after I changed the "Access Control" checkboxes for a "page" node, upon submitting, the settings would reset to default. It took me only a few minutes to read about the problem and find a solution that required me to manually edit the "content_access.admin.inc" file. I will not even bother detailing the fix, as I noticed that my Drupal update already urged me to get the newest version of the "guilty" module. Not exactly surprisingly, the new version already had that partcicular fix.

Another series of pleasant Drupal experiences. Marching on...