Index: INSTALL.txt
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/drupal/drupal/INSTALL.txt,v
retrieving revision 1.61.2.4
diff -u -p -r1.61.2.4 INSTALL.txt
--- INSTALL.txt	9 Jul 2008 19:15:59 -0000	1.61.2.4
+++ INSTALL.txt	19 Aug 2008 21:23:19 -0000
@@ -280,11 +280,25 @@ its own individual configuration.
 
 Additional site configurations are created in subdirectories within the 'sites'
 directory. Each subdirectory must have a 'settings.php' file which specifies the
-configuration settings. The easiest way to create additional sites is to copy
-the 'default' directory and modify the 'settings.php' file as appropriate. The
-new directory name is constructed from the site's URL. The configuration for
-www.example.com could be in 'sites/example.com/settings.php' (note that 'www.'
-should be omitted if users can access your site at http://example.com/).
+configuration settings. To create additional sites, copy the 'default' directory
+over to your new site directory and modify the 'settings.php' file as
+appropriate (assuming you've already copied sites/default/default.settings.php
+to sites/default/settings.php). The new directory name is constructed from the
+site's URL. The configuration for www.example.com could be in
+'sites/example.com/settings.php' (note that 'www.' should be omitted if users
+can also access your site at http://example.com/).  Therefore, you would copy
+the entire sites/default/ directory (including its settings.php) over to
+sites/example.com.
+
+Warning: Do *not* start with a blank settings.php file for each site, and add in
+only those settings you need, thinking that the rest will be picked up by the
+sites/default/settings.php file. It doesn't work this way. Despite its name, the
+'default' settings.php settings are not inherited by the other sites
+settings.php files if those sites' settings.php's are missing a setting.. Using
+a bare-bones settings.php file (e.g., with $db_url and $conf['theme_default'] as
+the only settings) has been known to cause problems in some situations.  So
+start each site with a full copy of the settings.php file from the sites/default
+directory, and then change it to match your site's needs.
 
 Sites do not have to have a different domain. You can also use subdomains and
 subdirectories for Drupal sites. For example, example.com, sub.example.com,
@@ -295,6 +309,34 @@ setup for a configuration such as this w
   sites/example.com/settings.php
   sites/sub.example.com/settings.php
   sites/sub.example.com.site3/settings.php
+  sites/adifferentexample.com/settings.php
+
+If you are using Apache as your web server, you'll need to set up VirtualHosts
+in your httpd.conf.  One possible setup for the above hosts would be something
+like the following:
+
+   NameVirtualHost *:80
+
+   <VirtualHost *:80>
+     ServerName example.com
+     ServerAlias www.example.com
+     DocumentRoot "/var/www/drupal"
+   </VirtualHost>
+
+   <VirtualHost *:80>
+     ServerName sub.example.com
+     ServerAlias www.sub.example.com
+     DocumentRoot "/var/www/drupal"
+   </VirtualHost>
+
+   <VirtualHost *:80>
+     ServerName adifferentexample.com
+     ServerAlias www.adifferentexample.com
+     DocumentRoot "/var/www/drupal"
+   </VirtualHost>
+
+Also, if your hosts are available to the outside world, they'll of course have
+to have DNS entries.
 
 When searching for a site configuration (for example www.sub.example.com/site3),
 Drupal will search for configuration files in the following order, using the
@@ -326,8 +368,21 @@ accessible to other sites, the setup wou
   themes/custom_theme
   modules/custom_module
 
-NOTE: for more information about multiple virtual hosts or the configuration
-settings, consult the Drupal handbook at drupal.org.
+NOTE: For more information about multiple virtual hosts or the configuration
+settings, consult the Multi-site section of the Drupal 6 handbook at
+http://drupal.org/getting-started/6/install/multi-site.  If you're using Apache,
+you may also want to consult the VirtualHosts docs for your version, e.g., for
+Apache v.2, at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/vhosts/.
+
+WARNING: It is assumed that a multi-site configuration means not only using
+different settings files for each site, but also using a different database
+prefix for the tables for each separate site. That is, multi-site configuration
+using a *single* set of shared database tables across all sites -- which you
+might do if you wanted to have several sites, each with a different look
+("theme"), but still sharing the same *content*, users, etc. -- is unfortunately
+NOT supported by Drupal Core alone.  However, it *is* possible to accomplish
+this by adding the Domain modules (see http://drupal.org/project/domain) to your
+Drupal installation.
 
 For more information on configuring Drupal's file system path in a multi-site
 configuration, see step 6 above.