i had to modify things slightly. Here's what I now have for anyone who's interested...the lovely bit about this method is that the modules install globally off a single install, and the user only has to click the install link via the admin pannel to enable it for their site.
config.php:
$siteNames = Array(anchorage,atlanta,chicago,cincinnati,cleveland,etc,etc,etc);
$currentPath = explode('.',$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
$successKey = array_search($currentPath[0],$siteNames);
if($successKey) {
$successName = $siteNames[$successKey];
$config['db_prefix'] = $successName.'_';
$config['root_url'] = 'http://'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
$config['root_path'] = "/home/aaum/public_html/master";
$config['previews_path'] = '/home/site/public_html/master/sites/'.$successName.'/tmp/cache';
$config['uploads_path'] = '/home/site/public_html/master/sites/'.$successName.'/uploads';
$config['uploads_url'] = '
http://domain.com/master/sites/'.$successName.'/uploads';
$config['admin_dir'] = 'admin';
$config['image_uploads_path'] = '/home/site/public_html/master/sites/'.$successName.'/uploads/images';
$config['image_uploads_url'] = $config['root_url'] . '/sites/'.$successName.'/uploads/images';
} else {
$config['db_prefix'] = 'a1_master_';
$config['root_url'] = '
http://domain.com/master';
$config['root_path'] = '/home/site/public_html/master';
$config['previews_path'] = '/home/site/public_html/master/tmp/cache';
$config['uploads_path'] = '/home/site/public_html/master/uploads';
$config['uploads_url'] = $config['root_url'] . '/uploads';
$config['admin_dir'] = 'admin';
$config['image_uploads_path'] = '/home/site/public_html/master/uploads/images';
$config['image_uploads_url'] = $config['root_url'] . '/uploads/images';
}
The directory structure basically looks like:
/master
-----admin
-----cgi-bin
-----doc
-----images
-----include (we keep our templates in here)
-----lib
-----modules
-----plugins
-----sites (contains cache and upload directories for each domain)
----------anchorage
---------------tmp
--------------------cache
--------------------templates
--------------------templaces_c
---------------uploads
----------atlanta
---------------etc
----------etc
-----tmp (cache for default page. I'm using this to display a 404)
-----uploads (presumably if we ever wanted global content available to all domains...)
I then also edited filloc.php (thanks again Alby) to set the upload directory to use this schema, similar to the config file.
I then set up subdomains for every site, and redirects like so:
http://subdomain.domain.com/uploads/ -> public_html/master/sites/subdomain/uploads
to handle content that already existed for the sites we had.
I also had to upgrade them, which was a snap. I had the current version running in /master already, so then just
set config.php to writeable, login to the first subdomain, which prompts me to upgrade the db schema, because it sees the one config has set it to is old.
after completing the schema upgrade, drag the config back over the one that upgrade has newly written. log in to the next site, which will prompt you to do the schema upgrade again.
rinse and repeat for each subdomain and yer done.
we're using several modules, including Album, which work fine using this method so far as my testing's gone.