Question

Add a sub domain and create a separate virtual host through code

Hi! I have a CRM that is already published. Now I want to sell it on subscription basis. I want to clone the same application as soon as a new client registers and pay the fee. For that I need a sub domain automatically through code and the virtual host too. Not through the CPanel. I will just copy the current application and the database it is using for every new client and he/she will access it through a sub domain which will be named after their username. Help will be appreciated greatly. Thanks!

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Bobby Iliev
Site Moderator
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• November 24, 2020
Accepted Answer

Hi there @deevannaveed,

If you have a cPanel server, then what you could do is use the cPanel/WHM API to create new accounts for your new users. It will look like this:

  1. whmapi1 createacct username=username domain=example.com bwlimit=unlimited cgi=1 contactemail=username@example.com cpmod=paper_lantern customip=192.0.2.0 dkim=1 featurelist=feature_list forcedns=0 frontpage=0 gid=123456789 hasshell=0 hasuseregns=1 homedir=/home/user ip=n language=en owner=root mailbox_format=mdbox max_defer_fail_percentage=unlimited max_email_per_hour=unlimited max_emailacct_quota=1024 maxaddon=unlimited maxftp=unlimited maxlst=unlimited maxpark=unlimited maxpop=unlimited maxsql=unlimited maxsub=unlimited mxcheck=auto password=123456luggage pkgname=my_new_package plan=default quota=1024 reseller=0 savepkg=1 spamassassin=1 spf=1 spambox=y uid=123456789 useregns=1

You can take a look at the documentation here:

https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/DD/WHM+API+1+Functions+-+createacct

If you don’t have cPanel what you could do is to have a template of a and then update the details in there. For example, your Vhost template could look like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>

        ServerName DOMAIN_NAME
        ServerAlias www.DOMAIN_NAME

        ServerAdmin design@iskam.website
        DocumentRoot /var/www/DOMAIN_NAME/public

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        <Directory /var/www/DOMAIN_NAME/public>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride All
                Require all granted
        </Directory>
        Protocols h2 http/1.1
</VirtualHost>

Then you could just substitute the DOMAIN_NAME part with the domain name of the specific user. If you are planning to do it with a shell script you could use the sed command:

sed -i "s/DOMAIN_NAME/${domain}/g" ${domain}.conf

Then you can copy that Vhost into the sites-available folder:

  1. cp ${domain}.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/${domain}.conf

Then to enable the Vhost you could do something like this:

# Enable the new Vhost
a2ensite ${domain}
# Run a Config test
apache2ctl -t
# Restart Apache if config test is OK
if [[ $? -eq 0 ]] ; then
    echo "Config test was ok, restarting Apache.."
    systemctl restart apache2
else

Hope that this helps! Regards, Bobby