A Virtual Domain Group or VDG allows you to create multiple web sites by host domain. Mostly useful for creating multiple Web sites, it allows you more than one HTTP folder per virtual domain. It is called VDG because you can separate each virtual domain by security access groups thus separating users, file areas and message areas for each web site.
Suppose you have two domains:
domain1.com is your main domain and your http\ folder is assigned to it.
domain2.com is a different domain and your http-domain2\ folder is assigned to it.
When users use the url http://domain1.com, Wildcat! will serve the pages in HTTP\ sub-folder. When users use the url http://domain2.com, Wildcat! will serve the pages in HTTP-domain2\ sub-folders.
In the Virtual Domains section, click the ADD button. The following information is needed:
Enter the host name or IP address for the virtual domain. The host name should be resolvable via DNS so that users can find the site.
Optional: The default administrator is used if this field is not define. If defined, it will be used for the administrator name for the virtual domain.
Optional: The default site name is used if this field is not define. If defined, it will be used for the site name for the virtual domain.
A different access mode can be used for the virtual domain. For example, one host can be open and another host can be closed.
A different new user security profile can be used for the virtual domain. For example, one host can be "New User" and another host can be "Registered".
The Web HTTP Root Folder allows you to define a different HTTP\ folder for the virtual domain. See Creating Virtual Domain HTTP Directory.
By default, the Web HTTP Root folder is not the public access, non-authenticated folder but instead the private authethenticated ROOT folder. By design and a product feature, Wildcat! has a built-in private "http\" vs public "http\public" layout where the public\ page is accessible for displaying the login page. Once logged in, the user is redirected the private "http\" root folder.
There are many applications and needs where authentication is not required. You can make the Web HTTP Root public by checking the option:
In order to create the Virtual Domain Group, you need to set the security access profiles that have access to the virtual domain. For example, one site might be for normal users, another site can be special users with special access profiles.
When you create a new VDG, it must have a different HTTP folder than the default HTTP\ folder. Currently, this step must be manually done. For example, using xcopy you can copy the http\ folder to another like so:
CD \WC6 XCOPY HTTP HTTP2 /e /s
The HTTP\ folder remains to be the default web site folder and HTTP2\ is used for a virtual domain, i.e. domain2.com
Once the folder is available for the virtual domain, you can then begin got customize and create different web sites with different web pages.
It is important to know that the two folders are separate and independent for each web site domain. There is no sharing of files or folders with the http folders, including the following stock folders:
HTTP\TEMPLATE HTTP\ERRORS HTTP\IMAGES HTTP\PUBLIC\JS HTTP\PUBLIC\GRAPHICS HTTP\PUBLIC\WCFLASH
This means that when AUTOUPDATE is used to update your system, it will only update the stock folders, not the virtual domain HTTP folders (like HTTP2\). If you are not modifying the stock folder the virtual domain http folder, you might need to do manual copying of the updates stock files.
However, sharing common folders without copying can be accomplished using advanced techniques such junction points (virtual directories).