Use the ServerName as a variable in httpd.conf file

Question

My current httpd.conf file looks something like this:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/www.example1.com
    ServerName www.example1.com
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile    /var/www/ssl/www.example1.com/certificate.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /var/www/ssl/www.example1.com/private.key
    SSLCACertificateFile  /var/www/ssl/www.example1.com/bundle.crt
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/www.example2.com
    ServerName www.example2.com
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile    /var/www/ssl/www.example2.com/certificate.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /var/www/ssl/www.example2.com/private.key
    SSLCACertificateFile  /var/www/ssl/www.example2.com/bundle.crt
</VirtualHost>

I am hoping to be able to store the "ServerName" in some type of variable to be able to simplify the file (to something like this):

Define server_name = ServerName

<VirtualHost *:443>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/${server_name}
    ServerName ${server_name}
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile    /var/www/ssl/${server_name}/certificate.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /var/www/ssl/${server_name}/private.key
    SSLCACertificateFile  /var/www/ssl/${server_name}/bundle.crt
</VirtualHost>

Is there any way I can do something like this? I looked around and could not find any solutions that would help with this but I could be taking the wrong approach.

An interesting question, clearly expressed; +1 from me! – MadHatter Nov 20 '13 at 07:32 — MadHatter, Nov 20 '13 at 07:32

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 20 '13 at 06:38

try mod_macro

Here is an example:

## Define a VHost Macro for repetitive configurations

<Macro VHost $host $port $dir>
  Listen $port
  <VirtualHost *:$port>

   ServerName $host
   DocumentRoot $dir

   # Public document root
   <Directory $dir>
       Require all granted
   </Directory>

   # limit access to intranet subdir.
   <Directory $dir/intranet>
     Require ip 10.0.0.0/8
   </Directory>
  </VirtualHost>
</Macro>

## Use of VHost with different arguments.

Use VHost www.apache.org 80 /vhosts/apache/htdocs
Use VHost example.org 8080 /vhosts/example/htdocs
Use VHost www.example.fr 1234 /vhosts/example.fr/htdocs

This seems to be the best way to simplify my conf file how I want it. Great suggestion. — RonSper, Nov 21 '13 at 01:53

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 20 '13 at 06:17

I'm thinking maybe you could create a config file with your variable declarations, include it in the httpd.conf file, and then run a cron job to change the server name to whatever is currently the server name using sed.

Example cron job:

set servername = hostname
sed -i -e 's/(?-s)define servername .+/define servername $servername/g' /etc/httpd/conf.d/variables.conf

Use the ServerName as a variable in httpd.conf file

2 Answers2