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Enfold Proxy

Make Plone faster when you set up Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) to handle a variety of tasks.

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Managing Multiple Hosts

Enfold Proxy (EP) can also be used to map more than one Plone sites to different domains or hosts.

The configuration process depends on whether the version of Internet Information Services (IIS) you are using allows you to create multiple IIS sites. Versions of IIS for Windows Server 2003/2000 allow users to create multiple IIS sites. IIS for XP Professional and Windows 2000 only allowed administrators to create and manage a single IIS site. IIS For Vista (IIS 7) allows you to create multiple IIS sites. (See Vista support for Enfold Proxy).

The more common case (where your IIS version supports multiple IIS sites) will be considered first.

Having problems? Check the troubleshooting checklist or the common tasks in Enfold Proxy or the FAQ.

If Your IIS Version Supports Multiple IIS Sites

This is actually the ideal arrangement and the easiest to configure. You will create a separate IIS site for each host or domain. This applies to IIS 6 and IIS 7.

For this example, http://www.originalsite.com is the first domain, and http://www.funsite1.com is the second domain you will use.

  1. Configure your first IIS host in the normal way. See Configuring your first IIS host.

  2. Verify that the first host resolves correctly (See Verifying that the IIS Host resolves correctly)

  3. Use IIS to create a new IIS site.

    images/create_new_iissite.png

  1. Go through the IIS Site Creation wizard. In this example, the new site will be called funsite1 . Notes:

    • you will need to indicate a directory for the site root. You can simply use the default site root for IIS ( C:\Inetpub\wwwroot ) or create one underneath this directory (i.e., C:\Inetpub\wwwroot ). The most important thing here is that the directory allows read access for the IIS user. Actually, when you add or configure a host using Enfold Proxy, EP will create a virtual directory _Plone that is visible inside IIS (but not visible inside the file system on Windows Explorer).
    • Enter: Port Number: 80, Host Header values: www.funsite1.com, IP Address: All Unassigned, and leave "allow anonymous access" enabled.

  2. Test that your domain works in IIS. (See Verifying that the IIS Host resolves correctly)

  3. Create a new Plone site using the ZMI. (See Adding a Plone site with the ZMI). You will need to give the new site a different name besides "Plone". For this example, we'll call the Plone site Plone2.

  4. Now configure your proxy definition for the www.funsite1.com similar to how you did it in Step 1.

    1. Change the Virtual Host Root to correspond to your Plone site. (Use /Plone2 or whatever you want -- remember the initial backslash is necessary here).
    2. Go to the Site tab and click on the dropdown menu. Choose funsite1

  5. After you press Save, you should see a virtual folder appear under the funsite1 which says _plone . After that happens, you can test the URL in your browser to make sure it works.

If Your IIS Version Supports Only One IIS Site

The process for this is a little less direct. Because you are unable to create new IIS sites on the fly, you will instead redirect all IIS traffic to Enfold Proxy and sort host headers by using a special field in each proxy definition. In other words, IIS will not do any routing but simply forward everything to Enfold Proxy for it to sort. Before you can do this, you must remove all host headers inside IIS. However, doing this is not ideal (for security and performance reasons).

For this example, we will create two domains www.originalfunsite.com and www.funsite1.com which will both serve Plone content from Enfold Server.

  1. Verify that each host or hosts resolves correctly (See Verifying that the IIS Host resolves correctly)

  2. In your Default Web Site in IIS, remove all host headers.

    1. Open IIS and right click Default Web Server. Choose Properties.
    2. Go to the Website Tab. Click Advanced.
    3. In IIS, make sure the only host header you see says: IP Address (All Assigned), Port Number (80), Host Header Value (Leave this blank).
    images/onlyoneiissite.png

  3. Create a new Plone site using the ZMI. (See Adding a Plone site with the ZMI). You will need to give the new site a different name besides "Plone". For this example, we'll call the Plone site Plone2. (If you wanted to add a third domain, you would create one called Plone3, etc).

  4. Use Enfold Proxy to create a new proxy definition for each host/domain you wish to declare. Follow the instructions for creating a Proxy Definition for your Host . You will need to do two things differently:

    1. Change the Virtual Host Root to correspond to your Plone site. (Use /Plone2 or whatever you want -- remember the initial backslash is necessary here).
    2. Go to the Site tab. You will need to add all the host headers you wish Enfold Proxy to handle on the field for and click on the dropdown menu. Choose Default Web Site and type in www.originalfunsite.
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  1. Repeat Steps 3 for each additional host/domain you want to proxy. For example, if you wanted to create a new Plone site for www.funsite1.com, you would need to create a new proxy definition with unique Virtual Host Roots. On the Site tab, you'd keep Default Web Site and type in www.funsite1.com .