Before Your Purchase

Before your purchase you should first of all understand what this add-on is for: With this add-on you can use a single concrete5 installation to serve multiple domains. You can map each domain to display separate pages from your sitemap.

Now, if you understand this, it's time to make sure you can run this add-on on your server. You will need to know how to setup your server and DNS settings yourself in order to use this add-on. You can also hire us to do that for an additional fee and we will be happy to help you out. As we clearly ask you to read this guide through before your purchase, we will not refund your license in case you are not able to do the setup yourself and you are not willing to hire external help. It is not an issue with our add-on, it is an issue with the skills of the license holder. We try to be very clear about this and ask you kindly to confirm that you can do the setup yourself or make sure that you are prepared to pay for it, prior to your purchase.

We follow the marketplace refund policy but in case you are unable to do the server setup, it is not our responsibility to setup your server for you free of charge. The license price buys you the right to use this add-on on one a single concrete5 project (and its instances like development, testing and production). The license price does not provide you our free concultancy on setting up servers. It is on the user's responsibility to make sure they understand what they are buying and what it takes to set it up prior to their purchase. We have made this clear and we do not know how to be clearer about this. In case you failed to read this prior to your purchase, it is your responsibility. By following this guide, you should be able to figure out whether you have the necessary skills for the setup, you do not need to buy the add-on for that purpose.

Please note that many budget hosting service providers or shared hosting services may not allow you to map multiple domains to a single location under your account. It is therefore also good to make sure that you have a suitable environment prior to your purchase. You can check this also by following this guide.

You can easily make sure your server environment supports the add-on by going through the following steps prior to your purchase:

1. Are you able to control the DNS of your domains?

  • Yes → login to your DNS management account and move on to step 2.
  • No → you cannot set this add-on up and you should not purchase it.

2. Do you know how to map all your domains from your DNS servers to your web server?

  • Yes → map all the domains to point to your server and move on to step 3. Please note that DNS changes may take up to 72 hours to propagate over the world, so you might not instantly see the changes. Usually it is a lot faster than 72 hours but it depends on the settings of your domains.
  • No → you cannot set this add-on up and you should not purchase it.

3. Are you on a shared server / budget hosting account or do you control the server yourself (VPS or dedicated server)?

  • Shared hosting → move on to step 4.
  • VPS or dedicated server → move on to step 5.

4. Shared hosting

4.1. Does your hosting provider's admin panel allow you configure multiple domains for your account?

  • Yes → configure all the domains to point to the same location under your account, this should be eventually where you install concrete5 or have already installed. Move on to step 6.
  • No → you cannot set this add-on up and you should not purchase it.

5. VPS or dedicated server

5.1. Do you manage the server directly through SSH or through a web interface, such as cPanel?

  • SSH → move on to step 5.2.
  • Web interface → move on to step 5.5.

5.2. SSH: Do you have root or sudo account to your server?

  • Yes → great, move on to step 5.4.
  • No → hold on, move on to step 5.3.

5.3. SSH: Can you modify your web server application's settings without root or sudo account?

  • Yes → cool, move on to step 5.4.
  • No → you cannot set this add-on up and you should not purchase it.

5.4. SSH: Do you know how to manually edit your server's virtual host settings?

  • Yes → add a separate virtual host block (or use e.g. ServerAlias in Apache) for all your domains and point them to the same location on your web server. This location is where you eventually install concrete5 or have already installed it. Move on to step 6.
  • No → you cannot set this add-on up and you should not purchase it. You may try to learn from our documentation and after that come back to this question. Or you can hire us to set up your server.

5.5. Web interface: Do you know how to change the virtual server settings from your interface, i.e. map different domains to different locations on your server?

  • Yes → map all your domains to the same location on your web server. This location is where you eventually install concrete5 or have already installed it. Move on to step 6.
  • No → you cannot set this add-on up and you should not purchase it. Or you can hire us to set up your server.

6. Confirm all your domains are now served from the correct location on your web server

Locate the path on your server from which you have mapped all the domains to be served. Create a new file there named test.php.

Put the following contents to the file:

<?php echo "OK";

Now, open up your web browser and try to request that file from each of your domains, i.e. type the following URLs to your browser (replace the domains with the domains you have just set up to be served by your web server):

www.domain1.com/test.php
www.domain2.com/test.php
www.domain3.com/test.php 
etc.

Under each domain, do you see a white page appearing with the test "OK" on it?

  • Yes → magnificent, congratulations! Everything seems all right for running multiple domains. Go ahead and buy the add-on! Please let us know if there is something you would like to know or if you experience any problems with the add-on.
  • No → if you have got this far, it might be that you missed some step or are still waiting for the DNS to propagate. Go over these steps again and make sure you have done everything correctly. Also, feel free to send us any pre-sale questions if you have any doubts about this add-on!