Apache conf: how to specify subdomain in when using mod_vhost_alias for wildcard virtual hosts

Question

To start with, we wanted a request to *.example.com to be handled by a corresponding /var/www/*/ directory, and we have got this working by using mod_vhost_alias with VirtualDocumentRoot, as follows:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAlias *.example.com
    UseCanonicalName Off
    VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/%1/
</VirtualHost>

Now we want to expand on this shared configuration by applying the same RewriteRules to all subdomains / directories - from within the vhost configuration's <Directory> block - but we do not know how to reference the subdomain / directory.

We're basically trying to do something like this (note the use of %1, which doesn't work in this case):

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAlias *.example.com
    UseCanonicalName Off
    VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/%1/

    <Directory /var/www/%1>
            RewriteEngine on
            RewriteRule     ^about/?$       index.php?view=about
            RewriteRule     ^settings/?$    index.php?view=settings
            RewriteRule     ^support/?$     index.php?view=support
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Is something like this possible?

Thanks.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 20 '11 at 10:32

Ok we've managed to get this to work. All that was needed was a minor tweak of the <Directory> path (namely using the * wildcard instead of %1), removing the ^ characters in the RewriteRules' patterns, and adding a leading / in the substitution strings:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAlias *.example.com
    UseCanonicalName Off
    VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/%1/

    <Directory /var/www/*>
        RewriteEngine on
        RewriteRule     about/?$       /index.php?view=about
        RewriteRule     settings/?$    /index.php?view=settings
        RewriteRule     support/?$     /index.php?view=support
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Now for the sake of complying with ServerFault's policy (as well as Google's indexing), I'm marking this question as answered, but I must emphasise that we couldn't have done this without the patient help from thumbs in #httpd on irc.freenode.net

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 19 '11 at 21:16

Don't bother with <Directory> in this case.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAlias *.example.com
    UseCanonicalName Off
    VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/%1/

    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteRule     ^/about/?$       /index.php?view=about
    RewriteRule     ^/settings/?$    /index.php?view=settings
    RewriteRule     ^/support/?$     /index.php?view=support
</VirtualHost>

If you've got something other than a Rewrite that needs to be done, for instance, access controls, add a <Location> block instead of a <Directory> block:

<Location />
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 10.0.0.0/8
</Location>

Thanks Shane. I tried this but I get a 404 error. I checked my access.log and it seems that the URLs are not being re-written correctly. For example, `http://foo.example.com/about/` is being re-written to `http://foo.example.com/about/index.php?view=about` instead of `http://foo.example.com/index.php?view=about` - and I also checked the error.log and it says "File does not exist: /htdocs". Any ideas? — Kosta Kontos, Sep 19 '11 at 21:48

Apache conf: how to specify subdomain in when using mod_vhost_alias for wildcard virtual hosts

2 Answers2