Scenario: You want to deploy multiple Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) Sites in your organization, and each site should have its own domain name. You do not want to create a new IIS Virtual Server for each site. Can WSS handle this configuration?
Yes, but this configuration is not entirely intuitive. The most important aspect of this configuration is creating the configuration database to handle host headers. The only way to accomplish this is to create the config database using the stsadm.exe command line tool. If you use the SharePoint adminstration pages to create the config database, it will not be created in host header mode, and this configuration will not be possible.
After installing WSS but before doing anything in the Administration pages, go to the command prompt and navigate to the Program Files/Common Files/Microsoft Shared/web server extensions/60/bin folder. Run the stsadm.exe tool to create the database using this syntax:
stsadm -o setconfigdb -ds <database server name> -dn <database name> -hh
If you are not using integrated security for SQL, you must also include a username (-su) and password (-sp) in the command. The important piece is the -hh parameter which specifies Host Header mode.
Once the configuration database has been created, you can then create the sites. Make sure the server's hosts file is updated to specify the domain names you would like. For example, a hosts file for three team sites might look like this:
xx.xx.xx.xx www.site1.com
xx.xx.xx.xx www.site2.com
xx.xx.xx.xx www.site3.com
Where xx.xx.xx.xx is the IP address of the server.
Then, create the sites using the stsadm.exe tool:
stsadm.exe -o createsite -url http://www.site1.com -ownerlogin <domain>\<username> -owneremail <email address>
Do this for each site. Navigate to the URL to select the template and your site will be created.
More information on this configuration can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/wss/2/all/adminguide/en-us/stsc03.mspx
BEWARE: This configuration will be broken if you install SharePoint Portal Server on the server. While Portal Server can be installed and reconnected to existing WSS Sites, this is NOT supported when using Host Header Mode. Portal wants all WSS sites to be addressed http://<Portal>/sites/<Site Name>.
To implement this configuration along with Portal, I suppose the best way is to install Portal on a separate server. Then each WSS Site can be linked to the Portal, and the Portal's Site Directory can be updated to link to the existing WSS Sites.
If someone is aware of a better implementation, please, let me know.