Hello,

I'm trying to set up slave sites that are identical to the master site except some delta information in the templates. When I create the slave site and access it, it launches the Joomla installation. This doesn't make sense to me. Shouldn't installation be bypassed when you select the 'Share the whole site' option?

Thanks,
Alex

Share the "whole website" mean that you use exactly the same DB with the same table prefix for different website.

In this case, you have different "configuration.php" file that make reference to the same website.
This give you change the "Site Title" and when using the Search/Replace plugin to replace some specific "patterns" present in your website with specific values.

You could for example create articles where you will put patterns like [__COMPANY_NAME__] that you will replace with the real value for a specific website.

This can be helpfull when creating an "affiliate" program where you would like to have the same website except the contact info.

You can also have a specific "/templates" directory and therefore have different variant of the "joomla template" depending on the website.

Yes that is what I'm trying to do.

However, when I create a slave site and I try to access it, it launches the Joomla! Web Installer. When I run through the installer it configures a new database so the slave site doesn't share a database with the master like it should.

When you choose 'Share the whole site' when you create a new site, it should skip the Joomla! Web Installation right?

Thanks

This mean that you didn't selected any website to replicate.
To share the "whole site", you need to have something to replicate (the template site).

If you don't provide anything to replicate (here the share whole) then this mean that you want to create a fresh slave site.