I wondered how easy/hard/secure it would be for me to do the following...

I basically want a secure php script to enable my customers to add and remove sub domains from there account.

I dont want a full control panel, simply some php and mysql maybe to allow them to manage sub domains.

any ideas, tips, help, offers.. post below ..

mwallis@totalise.co.uk is my email :)

Did you use PHP and secure in the same sentence? :)

Have you taken a look at plesk?

well im not looking for a full control panel... purely an area where customers can go to adjust sub domains.

I use qmail for mail management... just need a way for customers to control sub domains now.

you can use sql2dns or dnsadmin by inter-7 for editing zone records.. [tinydns . if you are using BIND there may be other tools]

after that it is a question of editing your httpd.conf

I have some ideas on this and I am working on it for developing a custom control panel based on different open source tools

I will email you later in my day :)

excellent! someone else who sounds like they are trying to do what i am thinking of attempting.

You want different customers to be able to edit subdomains of the same domain? or customers to edit subdomains of their domain?

What in my opinion would be easiest would be this:

1: in the zone file specify a wildcard so all names resolves.

2: create a rewrite for apache that rewrites all subdomains to
html_dir/subdomain.domain.com

OR

same 1. Then for two. Have each subdomain be its own file
which is included by apache. Thats the easiest way i can think of :)

just so a customer has access to their own domain, and nobody elses. :)

I made this script in php/mysql and lost it :bawling:

What you have to do is manage bind and httpd.conf file. I had a monitoring script running in the background which did the job of editing those files :)

It may be worth contacting Alivewww who have such a script in place.

for what you want to do this is what you need ( i had to do this for a client)

user management and profiling (who can edit what)

a table which keeps the first , middle, and last
part of the dns record, it could be extened with more fields or with better normalization. but for something like this you should be good with one or two tables.

dns 2 sql import (only needed when you import your initial data in)

sql 2 dns export

a perl/php script that runs the sql 2 dns function and creates your named.conf and appropriate domain files and then does "ndc restart"

a cron job to run the perl/php script every so often...

also do a search on freshmeat, thers hundreds of programs under "Name Servers"

I still think plesk would be a "easy" option. You wouldn't need to use it's other features. We were using it just for it's email account management for awhile. To tell the truth, I don't remember if plesk allows users to add "subdomains". But if it does...

plesk is over the top, this is a relatively simple feature im trying to create. I shouldnt need to BUY a control panel to do it.

Originally posted by UH-Matt
plesk is over the top, this is a relatively simple feature im trying to create. I shouldnt need to BUY a control panel to do it.

It would be easy though, and it's PHP. :)

When they add "subdomains", you just want them to be able to specify host names that would point to their existing site, or an existing site's subdirectory, or a completely new site?

It seems like they would need to update the DNS zone file, reload the zone file, update the httpd conf file, and restart the web server. To do this in PHP, you would probably want to interface with a SUID script that actually does the work that is written in something more secure than PHP.

I'm sure that you'll want to integrate it with whatever control panel you already have?

Once you have your specs, you might try posting in the "new" PHP forum for some help.

im going to post there 2morow.

i need to have a think about EXACTLY what i need this to do, and how it might technically go about it..

then see if some people can help me :)

Hi All,

How do we find who owns the IP.


any help appreciate.

thansk