Create a Root Catalog

The first thing we need to do when setting up a vanilla Magento 2 website is define our website, store, and store view structure.

So what is the difference between website, store, and store view, and why is it important?

  • Website is the top-level container and the most important of the three. It is the parent level of the entire store and used, for example, to define domain names, different shipping methods, payment options, customers, orders, and so on.
  • Stores can be used to define, for example, different store views with the same information. A store is always connected to a Root Catalog that holds all the categories and subcategories. One website can manage multiple stores, but every store has a different Root Catalog. When using multiple stores, it is not possible to share one basket. The main reason for this has to do with the configuration setup, where shipping, catalog, customer, inventory, taxes, and payment settings are not shareable between different sites.
  • Store view is the lowest level and mostly used to handle different localizations. Every store view can have a different language. Besides using store views just for localizations, they can also be used for Business to Business (B2B), hidden private sales pages (with noindex and nofollow), and so on. The option where we use the Base Link URL, for example, (yourdomain.com/myhiddenpage) is easy to set up.

The website, store, and store view structure is shown in the following image:

Create a Root Catalog

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, you will use a Droplet created in Chapter 2, Magento 2 System Tools, at DigitalOcean (https://www.digitalocean.com/). We will be using an NGINX, PHP-FPM, Composer-based setup with Magento 2 preinstalled. No other prerequisites are required.

How to do it...

For the purpose of this recipe, let's assume that we need to create a multi-website setup including three domains (yourdomain.com, yourdomain.de, and yourdomain.fr) and separated Root Catalogs. The following steps will guide you through this:

  1. First we need to update our NGINX. We need to configure the additional domains before we can connect them to Magento. Make sure that all domain names are connected to your server and DNS is configured correctly.

    Go to /etc/nginx/conf.d, open the default.conf file, and include the following content at the top of your file:

    map $http_host $magecode {
  hostnames;
    default base;
    yourdomain.de de;
    yourdomain.fr fr;
}
  2. Your configuration should look like this now:
    map $http_host $magecode {
  hostnames;
    default base;
    yourdomain.de de;
    yourdomain.fr fr;
}

upstream fastcgi_backend {
  server  127.0.0.1:9000;
}
server {
  listen  80;
  listen   443 ssl http2;
  
  server_name  yourdomain.com;

  set $MAGE_ROOT /var/www/html;
  set $MAGE_MODE developer;
      
  ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/yourdomain-com.cert;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/yourdomain-com.key;

  include /var/www/html/nginx.conf.sample;

  access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
  error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

  location ~ /.ht {
    deny  all;
  }
}
  3. Now let's go to the Magento 2 configuration file in /var/www/html/ and open the nginx.conf.sample file. Go to the bottom and look for:
    location ~ (index|get|static|report|404|503).php$

    Now we add the following lines to the file under fastcgi_pass fastcgi_backend;:

    fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_TYPE website;
fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_CODE $magecode;
  4. Your configuration should look like this now (this is only a small section of the bottom):
    location ~ (index|get|static|report|404|503).php$ {
  try_files $uri =404;
  fastcgi_pass   fastcgi_backend;

  fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_TYPE website;
  fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN_CODE $magecode;

  fastcgi_param  PHP_FLAG  "session.auto_start=off 
 suhosin.session.cryptua=off";
  fastcgi_param  PHP_VALUE "memory_limit=256M 
 max_execution_time=600";
  fastcgi_read_timeout 600s;
  fastcgi_connect_timeout 600s;
  fastcgi_param  MAGE_MODE $MAGE_MODE;

  fastcgi_index  index.php;
  fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
  include    fastcgi_params;
}

    The current setup uses the MAGE_RUN_TYPE website variable. You may change website to store, depending on your setup preferences. When changing the variable, you need your default.conf mapping codes as well.

  5. Now all you have to do is restart NGINX and PHP-FPM to use your new settings. Run the following command:
    service nginx restart && service php-fpm restart
  6. Before we continue, we need to check if our web server is serving the correct codes. Run the following command in the Magento 2 web directory:
    var/www/html/pub
echo "<?php header("Content-type: text/plain"); print_r($_SERVER); ?>" > magecode.php

    Don't forget to update your nginx.conf.sample file with the new magecode code. It's located on the bottom of your file and should look like this:

    location ~ (index|get|static|report|404|503|magecode).php$ {

    Restart NGINX and open the file in your browser. The output should look as follows. As you can see, the created MAGE_RUN variables are available:

    How to do it...
  7. Congratulations, you just finished configuring NGINX including additional domains. Now let's continue connecting them in Magento 2.
  8. Log in to the backend and go to Stores | All Stores. By default, Magento 2 has one Website, Store, and Store View setup. Now click on Create Website and commit the following details:

    Name

    My German Website

    Code

    de

    Next, click on Create Store and commit the following details:

    Website

    My German Website

    Name

    My German Website

    Root Category

    Default Category (we will change this later)

    Next, click on Create Store View and commit the following details:

    Store

    My German Website

    Name

    German

    Code

    de

    Status

    Enabled

    Repeat the same steps for the French domain. Make sure that the Code in Website and Store View is fr.

  9. The next important step is to connect the websites with the domain name. Go to Stores | Configuration | Web | Base URLs. Change the Store View scope at the top to My German Website. You will be prompted when switching; press OK to continue. Now uncheck the checkbox called Use Default from the Base URL and Base Link URL fields and commit your domain name. Now click Save Config and continue the same procedure for the other website. The output should look like this:
    How to do it...
  10. Save your entire configuration and clear your cache. Now go to Products | Categories and click on Add Root Category with the following data:

    Name

    Root German

    Is Active

    Yes

    Page Title

    My German Website

    Perform the same steps for the French domain. You may add additional information here but it is not needed. Changing the current Root Category called Default Category to Root English is also optional but advised.

    Save your configuration and go to Stores | All Stores and change all of the stores to the appropriate Root Catalog we just created. Every Root Category should now have a dedicated Root Catalog.

  11. Congratulations, you just finished configuring Magento 2 including additional domains and dedicated Root Categories. Now let's open up a browser and surf to the domain names you created: yourdomain.com, yourdomain.de, and yourdomain.fr.

How it works…

Let's recap and find out what we did throughout this recipe. In steps 1 through 11, we created a multi-store setup for .com, .de, and .fr domains using a separate Root Catalog.

In steps 1 through 4, we configured the domain mapping in the NGINX default.conf file. Then we added the fastcgi_param MAGE_RUN code to the nginx.conf.sample file; this will manage which website or store view to request within Magento.

In step 6, we used an easy test method to check if all domains run the correct MAGE_RUN code.

In steps 7 through 9, we configure the website, store, and store view names and codes for the given domain names.

In step 10, we created additional Root Catalogs for the remaining German and French stores. They are then connected to the previously created store configuration. All stores have their own Root Catalog now.

There's more…

Are you able to buy additional domain names, but would like to try setting up a multi-store? Here are some tips to create one. Depending on whether you are using Windows, Mac OS, or Linux, the following options apply:

  • Windows: Go to C:WindowsSystem32driversetc and open up the hosts file as an administrator. Add the following (change the IP and domain name accordingly):
    123.456.789.0    yourdomain.de
123.456.789.0    yourdomain.fr
123.456.789.0    www.yourdomain.de
123.456.789.0    www.yourdomain.fr

    Save the file and click on the Start button. Search then for cmd.exe and commit the following:

    ipconfig /flushdns
  • Mac OS: Go to the /etc/ directory, open up the hosts file as a superuser, and add the following (change the IP and domain name accordingly):
    123.456.789.0    yourdomain.de
123.456.789.0    yourdomain.fr
123.456.789.0    www.yourdomain.de
123.456.789.0    www.yourdomain.fr

    Save the file and run the following command on the shell:

    dscacheutil -flushcache

    Depending on your Mac version, check out the different commands here: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/how-to-clear-flush-dns-cache-in-os-x-yosemite/

  • Linux: Go to the /etc/ directory, open up the hosts file as a root user, and add the following (change the IP and domain name accordingly):
    123.456.789.0    yourdomain.de
123.456.789.0    yourdomain.fr
123.456.789.0    www.yourdomain.de
123.456.789.0    www.yourdomain.fr

    Save the file and run the following command on the shell:

    service nscd restart

    Depending on your Linux version, check out the different commands here: http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/rhel-debian-ubuntu-flush-clear-dns-cache/

Open up your browser and surf to the custom domains.

Tip

These domains only work on your PC. You can copy these IP and domain names on as many PC as you prefer. This method also works great when you are developing or testing and your production domain is not available on your development environment.

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