Installing and upgrading help

This would not be an issue in windows because windows doesn't know how to do symlinking.

In fact it does, if you are running your application under the POSIX execution environment (Win32 is just one of the several execution environments that Windows NT and later versions have).

Anyway, you can make it work without symlinking and with any web server you want, without relying on .htaccess, mod_rewrite or any other external dependecies, but pure PHP.

You just need to use a new file. I've called it 'moodle-sites.php' in the config.php I use below, but you can call it anything you want as long as you modifiy config.php to reflect the name change. In order to provision new sites, you just add a new server settings block to the file and you are done (from the Moodle point of view; of course you'll need to create the new database, optionally the dataroot directory, etc.)

Make sure the moodle-sites.php file is inside $CFG->dirroot directory.

<?php $sites = array ( 'site1.moodle.org' => array ( 'dbtype' => 'dtype_for_site1', 'dbhost' => 'dbhost_for_site1', 'dbname' => 'dbname_for_site1', 'dbuser' => 'dbuser_for_site1', 'dbpass' => 'dbpass_for_site1', 'dbpersist' => false, 'prefix' => 'prefix_for_site1', 'wwwroot' => 'http://site1.moodle.org', 'dataroot' => '/path/to/dataroot/for/site1', ), 'site2.moodle.org:8080' => array ( 'dbtype' => 'dbtype_for_site2', 'dbhost' => 'dbhost_for_site2', 'dbname' => 'dbname_for_site2', 'dbuser' => 'dbuser_for_site2', 'dbpass' => 'dbpass_for_site2', 'dbpersist' => false, 'prefix' => 'prefix_for_site2', 'wwwroot' => 'http://site2.moodle.org:8080', 'dataroot' => '/path/to/dataroot/for/site2', ), // ............................... // Add new moodle sites here // ............................... // // // ............................... // This is the default site. // ............................... '*' => array ( 'dbtype' => 'dbtype_default_for_site', 'dbhost' => 'dbhost_default_for_site', 'dbname' => 'dbname_default_for_site', 'dbuser' => 'dbuser_default_for_site', 'dbpass' => 'dbpass_default_for_site', 'dbpersist' => false, 'prefix' => 'prefix_default_for_site', 'wwwroot' => 'http://defaultsite.moodle.org', 'dataroot' => '/path/to/dataroot/for/default_for_site', ) ); ?>

As you see, you can even use special port numbers for your moodle sites.

Then you need the following modified config.php file. Make sure you adjust the $CFG->dirroot setting to reflect the path of the only directory used for all the moodle sites (no need to copy, symlink, bind-mount or other tricks to use the same shared code).

<?php // Moodle Configuration File unset($CFG);

// This two settings are common for all the hosted moodle sites.
$CFG->dirroot   = '/path/to/your/shared/moodle/code';
$CFG->admin     = 'admin';

// Pull in site specific settings
require_once ($CFG->dirroot . '/moodle-sites.php');

// Get the server name the client is trying to connect to. The logic is
// copied from qualified_me() in lib/weblib.php

// The default server name.
$hostname = '*'; 

if (!empty($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'])) {
    $hostname = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
} else if (!empty($_ENV['SERVER_NAME'])) {
    $hostname = $_ENV['SERVER_NAME'];
} else if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'])) {
    $hostname = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
} else if (!empty($_ENV['HTTP_HOST'])) {
    $hostname = $_ENV['HTTP_HOST'];
}

if (!empty($_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'])) {
    if ($_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'] != 80 && $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'] != 443) {
        $hostname .= ':' . $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'];
    }
}

if ($hostname != '*') {
    // If we have a non-default hostname, some of the web server variables
    // were set, so we are being called from the web. Set the server name 
    // to that value.
    $moodle_site = $hostname;
} else if (isset($_SERVER['argv'][1])){
    // No web server variables set, so check if we are begin called from the
    // command line. This must be a cron.php invocation (otherwise it doesn't
    // make sense at all). The server name should be specified as the
    // first (and only) parameter to the cron.php script.
    $moodle_site = $_SERVER['argv'][1];
} else {
    // Called from the command line, but we weren't passed the server name.
    // Use the default server settings.
    $moodle_site = '*';
}

// Now fetch its settings. If there are no server settings for that server
// name, fall back to the defaul server settings.
if (array_key_exists ($moodle_site, $sites)) {
    $site_params = $sites[$moodle_site];
} else {
    $site_params = $sites['*'];
}

// Now put the server settings in the place Moodle expects them :-)
$CFG->dbtype    = $site_params['dbtype'];
$CFG->dbhost    = $site_params['dbhost'];
$CFG->dbname    = $site_params['dbname'];
$CFG->dbuser    = $site_params['dbuser'];
$CFG->dbpass    = $site_params['dbpass'];
$CFG->dbpersist = $site_params['dbpersist'];
$CFG->prefix    = $site_params['prefix'];
$CFG->wwwroot   = $site_params['wwwroot'];
$CFG->dataroot  = $site_params['dataroot'];

$CFG->directorypermissions = 00777;  // try 02777 on a server in Safe Mode

require_once("$CFG->dirroot/lib/setup.php");
// MAKE SURE WHEN YOU EDIT THIS FILE THAT THERE ARE NO SPACES, BLANK LINES,
// RETURNS, OR ANYTHING ELSE AFTER THE TWO CHARACTERS ON THE NEXT LINE.
?>

NOTICE: If you are calling cron.php from the command line, you HAVE TO specify the server name of the moodle site you want to run cron.php for. Something like:

/usr/bin/php -f /path/to/your/shared/moodle/code/admin/cron.php site1.moodle.org /usr/bin/php -f /path/to/your/shared/moodle/code/admin/cron.php site2.moodle.org:8080 ...

would do it.

I've tested all of this with both Apache 2.2.4 and IIS 6.0 on Windows 2003, and Apache 1.3.4 on Debian Etch.

[Edit: I see that the markdown/code filters are munging the code a bit at the start of config.php, but I'm unable to correct it, so watch out! ]

Saludos. Iñaki.