Blueprinting for sub sites using DXA 1.5

Question

We have existing tridion blueprint setup for website A , it's using DXA 1.5.

• 000 Empty Master
• 010 Schema Master
• 020 Global Design
• 020 Global Repository
• 030 Arabic Content
• 030 Chinese Content
• 040 Global Web Master
• 050 Arabic Web
• 050 Chinese Web
• 050 Global English Web

with this blueprint we have the following website running

1. http://www.sitea.com -> 040 Global Web Master siteType simialr to DxaExampleSite
2. http://www.sitea.com/en -> 050 Global English Web
3. http://www.sitea.com/ar -> 050 Arabic Web
4. http://www.sitea.com/cn -> 050 Chinese Web

I would like to setup new subsites or micro sites with different domains but I would like to use the same look and feel of the siteA but not the structure.

Example :

• http://www.siteb.com/nl
• http://www.sitec.com/es
• http://www.sited.com/show
• http://www.sitef.com/venturecapital

Let us know how this can be achieved also have the following query

1. Is the Topology Mapping for the Master Site (type: Site Type) mandatory. ?
2. Even if we have a Mapping, we could not have a common host name as the same Master Publication will be used across many different Child publications with a different hostname. How to override this behaviour.?

Answer 1

If your Master Site only acts as a kind of template for your actual sites (a Site Type), it does not need Mappings in Topology Manager; it's even better to not have them. Note that you will still be able to publish at Master Site level, as long as you select "Also publish in child Publications".

Note that this setup is comparable to the "110 DXA Site Type" Publication in the DXA OOTB BluePrint. Indeed, the "400 Example Site" is also configured as Site Type, but that is for a different purpose: to be able to create language sites using the Site Wizard. The "400 Example Site" acts both as a Site Publication (i.e. is publishable itself) and as a Site Type (for language sites).

If you want to use a different domain name for a site, you will have to create a separate Website entity with its own, distinct Base URL in Topology Manager.

In your example, I see five distinct Website entities:

• Website1: BaseUrls = { http://www.sitea.com }
• Website2: BaseUrls = { http://www.siteb.com }
• etc.

A single DXA Web Application can serve all of these Websites (if your DNS server routes all of these domains to the same web server). The DXA web application is normally deployed at root-level, meaning that the default WebsiteX_RootWebApp entities in Topology Manager can be used.

Finally, the URL paths become the Relative URL of the Mapping entities in Topology Manager:

• Mapping1: RelativeUrl = '/', Publication = '040 Global Web Master', WebAppId = 'Website1_RootWebApp'
• Mapping2: RelativeUrl = '/en', Publication = '050 Global English Web', WebAppId = 'Website1_RootWebApp'
• Mapping3: RelativeUrl = '/nl', Publication = '050 Dutch Web', WebAppId = 'Website2_RootWebApp'
• Mapping4: RelativeUrl = '/es', Publication = '050 Spanish Web', WebAppId = 'Website3_RootWebApp'
• etc.

Note that a Topology Manager Mapping doesn't actually refer to the Publication Title, but to the Publication ID (TCM URI).