Multiple Websites (Windows)

This topic describes how to add a new website (also called a "webinitiative" in XperienCentral) to an existing installation.

See also Multiple Channels for steps you need to take in the XperienCentral user interface to complete/enhance this process.

In This Topic

Expanding the Directory Structure

For each new webinitiative, the directory structure needs to be expanded so the files from the new webinitiative will have their own place in the overall directory structure. In the directory structure below the new directories are shown after \wm:.

 D:\GX-WebManager\wwwroot\mywebsite\cfg
                                   \static
                                   \toolbar
                                   \upload
                                   \upload_mm
                                   \wm
                      \mysecondsite\cfg
                                   \upload
                                   \upload_mm
                                   \static  -> ..\mywebsite\static
                                   \wm      -> ..\mywebsite\wm

The folders static and wm are references to the folders with the same name in the first website (called “mywebsite”). To create this reference, use the Junction tool. This tool can be downloaded from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx.

The commands to create this new structure that you have to run in a Command prompt are:

cd D:\GX-WebManager\wwwroot
mkdir mysecondsite
cd mysecondsite
mkdir cfg
mkdir upload
mkdir upload_mm
junction static ..\mywebsite\static
junction wm ..\mywebsite\wm

Back to top

Make the New Hostnames Resolvable

The server on which XperienCentral is installed needs to be able to resolve the hostnames that are used for the Edit environment and the external environment of XperienCentral. In this example the hostnames are “www.mysecondsite.com” and “edit.mysecondsite.com”. If the hostnames don’t resolve to the correct IP address on the server, add them to the file
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.

Back to top

Change the IIS Configuration

Support for the Microsoft IIS web server was removed from XperienCentral in version R31.

When adding a new webinitiative to XperienCentral, the configuration of the IIS webserver also needs to be modified. For each new webinitiative in XperienCentral, there will be two new websites in IIS: one for the frontend and one for the Edit environment. Follow the steps as described in Create the Website (frontend) for creating a new frontend website. Follow the steps in Create the Edit Environment Website to create a new website for the Edit environment.

Back to top

Communicate Technical Details to the Software Developer

The system administrator needs to provide the following information to the developer:

Hostname of the website and the edit environment (in the example from this document this would be www.mysecondsite.com and edit.mysecondsite.com);
The DocumentRoot of the new website (in the example from this document this would be d:\xperiencentral\wwwroot\mysecondsite).

Back to top

Request a New configuration.xml

The configuration.xml contains a list of hostnames which will be supported by XperienCentral. The new hostnames for the new webinitiative have to be present in the configuration.xml, otherwise it is not possible to create the new webinitiative in XperienCentral. The software developer requests a new configuration.xml from GX Software; he or she then communicates the new hostnames that XperienCentral has to support. After the software developer has received the new configuration.xml from GX, he or she will send this file to the system administrator.

Back to top

Process the New configuration.xml

The System Administrator saves the new configuration.xml over the old one. Based on the directory structure in this document, the new configuration.xml has to be saved to D:\XperienCentral\configuration.

Back to top

Create the New Webinitiative within XperienCentral

The software developer can now create the new webinitiative within XperienCentral. XperienCentral has a wizard for creating the new webinitiative. In step 2 of this wizard, technical details are requested, therefore it is a good idea to gather this information before starting the wizard. The required details are:

Fieldname in step 2	How to determine the value of this field
Hostname	The hostname of the website (www.mysecondsite.com, for example).
Generator	The hostname of the edit environment (edit.mysecondsite.com, for example).
Default e-mail address	The default address used to send e-mails.
Folder for uploads	The folder where the uploads will be placed. This is the `DocumentRoot` directory plus `upload`. In the examples used, this would be `d:\xperienCentral\wwwroot\mysecondsite\upload`.
Upload URL	Based on the previous foldername, this would be `/upload/`.
Folder for multimedia uploads	The multimedia files (files that are stored in the Content Repository) are stored in the `upload_mm` folder. This is the `DocumentRoot` directory plus `upload_mm`. In the examples, this would be `d:\xperienCentral\wwwroot\mysecondsite\upload_mm`.
Multimedia Upload URL	Based on the previous foldername, this would be `/upload_mm/`.
Descriptor folders	These folders contain the presentation JSPs. XperienCentral scans these folders for new, changed, or deleted presentations. The folders need to be separated with a semicolon (;). The default value for this property is `/WEB-INF/project/;/WEB-INF/wm/jsp`. If you want to ignore the default presentations from XperienCentral and use your own presentation plugin, you can enter a value for it, for example: `/WEB-INF/project/<classname of your presentation plugin>`. The exact folder name of your deployed plugin can be looked up in `d:\xperienCentral\deploy\appBase\web\WEB-INF\project`.
Redirect base directory	The same as the `DocumentRoot` from IIS. In the examples, this would be `d:\xperienCentral\wwwroot\mysecondsite`.

Using the details from the table above, perform the following tasks in XperienCentral to create the new webinitiative:

Log into XperienCentral with a user that has either a developer or administrator role.
Navigate to Configuration > Channel Configuration.
At the top of this window there is a drop-down named "Select website". Select the option "<New website>" to create a new website. If this option is not available, then the license doesn’t allow creating more websites. Contact GX Software to buy the license for an additional website and to obtain a new configuration.xml.
After selecting the "<New website>” option, a wizard appears. Follow the steps in this wizard.

After the successful conclusion of the wizard, a new webinitiative will be created within XperienCentral. This webinitiative contains one page: the Homepage. Log into the new webinitiative with the developer or administrator user and create the new users who will have access to the XperienCentral Edit environment.

In the used examples, the login URL for the new webinitiative would be http://edit.mysecondsite.com/web/edit.