Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : Hosting Security and Technology Tutorials : Mikey's Instant Subdomains

[ub3r]

This tutorial will guide you on the steps needed to make subdomain creation as easy as creating a single directory.

Step One
Add a CNAME record for your domain for *.yoursite.com to your actual domain.

*.yoursite.com. 14400 IN CNAME yoursite.com.

make sure to include appropriate periods in those addresses.

Step Two
Open up your httpd.conf and add a host into your ServerAlias directive:

ServerAlias *.yoursite.com yoursite.com

Step Three

navigate to your site's public_html directory, and add this code to your .htaccess, if the .htaccess file doesn't exist, create one by typing "vi .htaccess", you can learn more about using vi at This Thread

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^[^.]+\.yoursite\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.+) %{HTTP_HOST}$1
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)\.yoursite\.com(.*) /home/yoursite/public_html/$1


Now, you can simply create a directory inside your public_html directory, and the subdomain will be instantly available.

[ryno267]

thanks mikey - that could come in handy in the future. Glad you figured that thing out - I'm so not the cgi/apache coder....

[error404]

Don't forget mod_vhost_alias .

Good stuff.

[mouseattack]

apologizes in advance for thread digging, but this is the only place I could find this code.

Ok so I did everything, but I guess there is something wrong in my .htaccess file, because no matter what I put in there, I see the MAIN www.mydomain.com website.


Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^[^.]+\.mydomain\.org$
RewriteRule ^(.+) %{HTTP_HOST}$1
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)\.mydomain\.org(.*) /home/mydomain/public_html/$1


What did I get wrong? I'd really like to get this up and running, I plan to have

ANYSUBDOMAIN.mydomain.com
- read from
mydomain.com/~ANYSUBDOMAIN

Any help I can get is appreciated? I added the appropriate things in the /var/named/mydomain.com.db and in the httpd.conf file.

What can I do to get this mod rewrite running?

Thanks.

[Scott.Mc]

Do you have AllowOverRide set to none in httpd.conf? if so set it to all.

[mouseattack]

<Directory />
Options All
AllowOverride All
</Directory>

That is what is set. What other bright ideas?

[mouseattack]

can someone replace mydomain and org with their domain and tld and test it and let me know if it even works or not?

I keep getting either 404 or 500 errors when i'm messing around with it.

I KNOW wildcarded domains is on for a fact, so the problem is not with that, because

ANYTHING.MYDOMAIN.ORG goes to www.mydomain.org

[mouseattack]

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /

# rewrite <subdomain>.example.com/<path> to example.com/<subdomain>/<path>
#
# Skip rewrite if no hostname or if subdomain is www
rewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
rewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}!^www\. [NC]
# Extract (required) subdomain (%1), and first path element (%3), discard port number if present (%2)
rewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}<>%{REQUEST_URI} ^([^.]+)\.zaxy\.org(:80)?<>/([^/]*) [NC]
# rewrite only when subdomain not equal to first path element (prevents mod_rewrite recursion)
rewriteCond %1<>%3!^(.*)<>\1$ [NC]
# rewrite to /subdomain/path
rewriteRule ^(.*) /%1/$1 [L]

I tried that code above, and I get 500 error.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

I tried that code, and I believe this one worked, but it redirected the browser to the folder location, and I don't want that. I want anysubdomain.mydomain.com to READ from mydomain.com/subdomain/ , not redirect. I could do that with a simple normal 301. I tried replacing the

RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
with
RewriteRule ^(.*) /home/mydomain/public_html/$1/ but it didn't do any good. Still 500 error.

[extras]

The backref in REGEX "\1" doesn't work in recent version of Apache.
rewriteCond %1<>%3!^(.*)<>\1$ [NC]

It seems this trick worked on older Apache, but not anymore, AFAIK.

Also, this code is useless.
rewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .

You can't do what you want in the .htaccess because of infinit looping.
You should put similar code in httpd.conf.

Other than per-dir context (.htaccess and <Directory>),
there is no problem of unwanted looping.
([L] works as expected.)

Maybe I'll write a patch to solve this, one day.

[extras]

I found another way to stop infinite loop (not ideal, though...).

Code can be as simple as this:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
rewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?([^.]+)\.example\.com [NC]
rewriteRule ^(.*)$ %2/$1 [L]

But in each one of subdirectory for the subdomain,
there must be a .htaccess file that contains;
RewriteEngine Off
or even;
RewriteEngine On

These have teh effect of stopping the processing.
If the .htaccess is deleted or the code is removed,
it will create 500 error with max redirect (Apache1.3.28 and above)
or Apache going crazy (below 1.3.28).

Having said that, better method is using mod_vhost_alias,
or doing similar redirect in other than per-dir context (usually in virtualhost).
In case it msut be done in .htaccess, using a prefix to the directory names will solve the problem.
(The prefix can be anything that doesn't occur in other directories or files, like "S_", "_", "USER-","sub/" and so on)

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?([^.]+)\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule !^/*prefix_ prefix_%2%{REQUEST_URI} [L]

[elprogramero]

Hello,
I'm sorry for diging this thread out, but is there a way to do this in Apache 1.3.3. ?

I'm having trouble with this code:

Step One
Add a CNAME record for your domain for *.yoursite.com to your actual domain.

*.yoursite.com.       14400   IN      CNAME   yoursite.com.

make sure to include appropriate periods in those addresses.

Step Two
Open up your httpd.conf and add a host into your ServerAlias directive:

ServerAlias *.yoursite.com yoursite.com

Step Three

navigate to your site's public_html directory, and add this code to your .htaccess, if the .htaccess file doesn't exist, create one by typing "vi .htaccess", you can learn more about usin....

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^[^.]+\.yoursite\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.+) %{HTTP_HOST}$1 
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)\.yoursite\.com(.*) /home/yoursite/public_html/$1

Can anyone PLEASE help me...?

I have read the whole thread, but I can't find solution, and this is ONLY place on the web where I was able to find it.

Thank you.

[elprogramero]

Hello... It's me again.. .Sorry for not understanding the tread, but I have solved my problem...

Sorry again....