Using ModRewrite to direct subdomains appropriately fails on MediaTemple

Question

I am familiar with modifying .htaccess files but my initial attempts to do so continue to fail.

Ultimately, I want to point users to 'imaginary' subdomains (those which do not exist) so that the subdomain can be parsed correctly with PHP and MySQL to find the particular member's information. It is my assumption that MediaTemple has something configured to always check for a true subdomain directory prior to any access so the .htaccess file settings are never touched and in turn just generate errors.

For example:

When somebody goes to www.example.com currently, it shows the parent site including information on how to become a member. Once a person is a member, their 'unique' URL is:

www.example.com?MemberID=12345

ultimately, forcing the member to remember the question mark agent equals can be confusing along with the need to remember the proper capitalization and such.

I would 'like' to achieve the following:

www.12345.example.com 

redirects to

www.example.com/index.php?MemberID=12345

(index.php reads the 12345 like a $_GET function to properly lookup the ID, valid and return response based on that.)

I believe we could? achieve the same using information after the slash:

e.g. www.example.com/12345

The issue is we already have other pages using /xxxx to modify client content as well as I don't want to block anybody's ability to simply visit: www.example.com/contact for example as a live link.

(where the site redirects to index, tries to look up memberid = 'contact' and does not find any results).

My .htaccess is currently:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.php
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(.+)\.example\.com
RewriteRule .* http://example.com/processing_page.php?ID=%1 [L,R]

I would expect based off my needs that typing www.something.example.com I would be redirected to: www.example.com/processing_page.php?something

Instead, it just redirects to my mediatemple hosting page (essentially stating no subdomain named 'something' exists).

I am running our server on a Media Temple DV 3.5 server running CentOS5 and LAMP stack.

Answer 1

Sorry to hear about your issues. If you are still having issues, I'd recommend contacting our tech support and taking a look at our wiki on specific rules.

If you open up a support request, feel free to contact us through our Twitter or phone support.

Answer 2

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(.+)\.example\.com
RewriteRule .* http://example.com/processing_page.php?ID=%1 [L,R]

I would expect based off my needs that typing www.something.example.com I would be redirected to: www.example.com/processing_page.php?something

This code wouldn't actually have done what you required. The first condition specifically excludes any hostname that starts www., so it wouldn't have redirected a request for www.something.example.com. You would have had to have requested something.example.com for this directive to have stood a chance. Otherwise, you'd just get your default home page.

This is assuming you have a "wildcard" subdomain configured in DNS and an appropriate ServerAlias directive defined in the virtual host for your site (and the webserver having been restarted).

To modify the above directives to do what you require, you would have needed something like this instead:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.([a-z0-9]+)\.example\.com
RewriteRule .* http://example.com/processing_page.php?ID=%1 [L,R]

This should also have gone before the first rule that appends the .php extension via an internal rewrite. Generally, redirects should always go before rewrites.