Roller 5 - Multi-domain Case Study (A Ten Step Linux Installation)

Congratulations on discovering Apache Roller! Perhaps, like me, you are a relative newcomer to Roller weblogging. Or maybe you are upgrading to Roller 5 from an earlier version. Either way, the new multi-domain functionality of version 5 is a significant advance, and further promotes Roller as the Weblog Server of choice for the enterprise environment. Naturally, hosting multiple domains from the one instance carries substantial benefits in terms of resource usage. Furthermore, as Roller is developed in Java – a professional object-oriented programming language – typically performance will be superior to comparable software developed in PHP or another scripting language.

Our own requirements were for a weblog server capable of handling a large number of internet ‘blog’ pages, generally each with its own domain. Optomus hosts websites for a number of clients. These clients expect to have their own blog sub-domain – and rightly so. Supporting URLs of the form http://blog.their-domain.com rather than http://blog.optomus.com/their-name was - and remains - a clear selling point. Another key requirement was that adding new domains should be a quick and simple affair; a fresh weblog installation for each domain simply wasn’t an option. Happily, Apache Roller has met these demands, and more.

Roller 5 weblogs presently hosted by optomus.com

The purpose of this case study is to describe in detail a Roller 5 installation in a typical production environment, whereby Apache HTTP Server operates as a proxy to Apache Tomcat. A few challenges were encountered along the way, and I explain how these were resolved. Occasionally I’ve deviated from the standard installation instructions - reasons are given. Please note that the official installation guide contains important information not repeated in this case study. Consequently, this document should be viewed as a supplement only, and used in conjunction with the Roller 5 installation guide.

This entire document may be accessed here: http://assets.optomus.com/documents/Roller%205%20-%20Multi-domain%20Case%20Study.pdf

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