Question

Automatically manage subdomains (without editing vhosts) apache

Hi!

I’ve decided to give digitalocean a try. I wanted to have more control of my remote dev enviroment but I guess it was more of the need to get my hands dirty with server management.

I’ve bought domain with local hosting and would like to point subdomains with projects on my Digital Ocean VPS.

Is there a way to setup vhosts in a way that they would simply point to a specific folder that when I create a new folder it would be automaticall “mapped”? Also do I have to create the specific subdomain with my local hosting service every time i need a new one? Or if i point my domain to the droplet all new subdomains will automatically work?

What are my options here? Thanks!


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You can try mod-vhost-alias.

Summary
This module creates dynamically configured virtual hosts, by allowing the IP address and/or the Host: header of the HTTP request to be used as part of the pathname to determine what files to serve. This allows for easy use of a huge number of virtual hosts with similar configurations.

You can use VH like following:

GNU nano 2.5.3 File: /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/%0/html

        <Directory /var/www/%0/html/>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride All
            Require all granted
        </Directory>

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

I tested it and it worked for me. %0 means it will substitute it with full link. So if someone goes example.example.com, it’ll use it. You can also use %1, to use only first part. For more look at above link provided.

Edit, Just to note, you need to add wildcard CNAME record @ to make desired effect.

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