What I'm trying to do:
I have several good forum domain names that all share a common theme. I would like to network all of these sites together so members and visitors can browse seamlessly when moving from one forum to another.

Requirements:
- All of the forums should share the same member database. When a visitor signs up with one site, their username, avatar, signature and other profile information should work site wide.
- Cookie handling should be network wide. Switching from one forum domain to another should not require a user login again.
- Forum/Subforum/Thread/Post URLs should be domain specific Dependant on current domain. If someone switches from forum1.com to something on forum2.com, the URLs should not still read Forum1.com/whatever
- Certain forums (ex: a general chat forum) should be capable of being displayed across multiple forums so someones post on forum1.com/generalchat will also show up in forum2.com/generalchat (and vise versa)

Wish List:
- Ideally we would be able to find a way to do this on a single installation of whatever software is capable of doing this. We do understand we may need to buy multiple licenses to operate on multiple domains legally, but the thought of having to upgrade, modify, and maintain 8+ forums individually isn't too pleasing.
- Ideally this solution should be easy enough to upgrade to work with future versions of the software. We would rather not be stuck with a solution that exploits a bug in the code and be stuck with having to decide whether or not to upgrade and break the functionality or our forums, or leave potential security holes open.

Network Structure example:
Domain 1
--Forum 1
----Sub-forum 1 (used for multiple domains/forums)
------Sub-forum 2 (used for multiple domains/forums)
------Sub-forum 3 (used for multiple domains/forums)
----Sub-forum 4
------Sub-forum 5
------Sub-forum 6
----Sub-forum 7
------Sub-forum 8
------Sub-forum 9

Domain 2
--Forum 2
----Sub-forum 1 (used for multiple domains/forums)
------Sub-forum 2 (used for multiple domains/forums)
------Sub-forum 3 (used for multiple domains/forums)
----Sub-forum 10
------Sub-forum 11
------Sub-forum 12
----Sub-forum 13
------Sub-forum 14
------Sub-forum 15

Domain 3
--Forum 3
...etc...

The Question:
Is any forum software capable of doing the above? If so, what would be the best solution to accomplish all of this? Modification is fine

vB and IPB both seem capable of sharing the same member database. It appears we will need separate installations for each domain. Our main hurdle right now seems to be the cookie handling. How can we get it so when someone logs in on one site they are also logged in on the other forums?

Thanks,
Jacob

The cookie handling wont work. I have tried it before.

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Ford Mustang Forums - F-Series Trucks

Well it is somethat possible.

So far the best cookie handling solution we have found is with IPB. We would need a main "central" forum that people log into. From there we could setup the the login auth on the various other forums to validate to the primary on fail-over.

The main problem with this solution is that we don't really have a main domain - all are equally important.

I remember I guy who did something similar to this before... unfortunately, I don't recall who it was, how he did it, or where it was. It wasn't exactly the same, but similar.

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Creative Writing|My Blog

I have been curious about this functionality. One way that should theoretically be possible is on a host that lets you host multiple domains.

Your path would be something like:
~Uniquename/public_html/domain1.com
~Uniquename/public_html/domain2.com
~Uniquename/public_html/domain3.com

Then you could share a MySQL database with ease. Make sure the records start with the same prefix, such as vb_, and that your cookies start with the same prefix, such as UNI_ or what have you.

But don't take my word for it. I'm only speculating.

Or, have a domain set up like this:

NICHEMARKET.net
|___nicheOne
|___nicheTwo
|___nicheThree

Then the domains could be:
nicheOne.nichemarket.net (redirect from some Domain1)
nicheTwo.nichemarket.net (redirect from some Domain2)
nicheThree.nichemarket.net (redirect from some Domain3)

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I went to Vegas, and all I got was this Blister. - true story!

Well, if IPB ever end up releasing IP.Converge the login bit should be possible.

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