[TriLUG] Apache Virtual Hosts Question

[Tanner Lovelace]

Joshua Gitlin wrote:
> Hey everyone,
> 
> I have a question about Apache's Virtual hosts. Let's say that I have a 
> few directories, "host1", "host2", "host3", all in one parent directory, 
> "sites". is there any way that I can configure apache to automatically 
> serve requests for host1.mydomain.com from the "host1" folder, and 
> requetss from "host2.mydomain.com" from the "host2" folder? I know I can 
> configure virtual hosts for each, but I'm trying to avoid that -- I want 
> to be able to just add a new directory and have a new host. How do these 
> free web hosting services do it? (You know, the ones where you sign up 
> as "username" and instantly your website is at 
> http://username.freehost.com/")?

I do this exact thing using mod_vhost_alias.  I even have my setup
switch on both the domainname and the hostname.  For instance I set
my directory up this way:

/var/www/hosts/<domainname_minus_top_level>/<hostname>/

Then, if a request comes in for http://hostname1.domainname1.<whatever>/
it serves up what's in /var/www/hosts/domainname1/hostname1/.  A request
for http://hostname2.domainname2.<whatever>/ serves what's in
/var/www/hosts/domainame2/hostname2/.  It's really quite flexible and you
you can do a lot more with it too.  See the links John Beimler
gave for a good discussion of the overall techniques and these links
for specific mod_vhost_alias options:

1.3: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_vhost_alias.html
2.0: http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_vhost_alias.html

Cheers,
Tanner
-- 
Tanner Lovelace | lovelace(at)wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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