[SOLVED] How to create a site instance per subdomain

How to create a site instance per subdomain

I would like to create a web platform where each customer get its own site like uservoice.com

Example:

Main website : uservoice.com
Customer 1: cust1-subdomain.uservoice.com
Customer 2 : cust2-subdomain.uservoice.com

The objective is that the customer can enter its site via its own url & login page.

Does anyone know how to do that? How to avoid a sub-directory by subdomain and copy all the files? I am looking for a clean and scalable solution.

Solution

I think the solution is a name-based virtual host.

For example the domain cust2-subdomain.uservoice.com will display the content located in a different folder than your DocumentRoot but the address will be unchanged. The server will recognize the domain and send the appropriate content.

If you are using apache: You will need to uncomment this line in the httpd.conf file if not already uncommented:

Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

Then you should edit /usr/local/apache2/conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin you@uservoice.com
    DocumentRoot "/usr/local/apache2/docs/uservoice.com"
    ServerName uservoice.com
    ServerAlias www.uservoice.com
    ErrorLog "logs/uservoice.com/error_log"
    CustomLog "logs/uservoice.com/access_log" common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin cust2@uservoice.com
    DocumentRoot "/users/customers/cust2/WWW"
    ServerName cust2-subdomain.uservoice.com
    ServerAlias www.cust2-subdomain.uservoice.com
    ErrorLog "logs/cust2/error_log"
    CustomLog "logs/cust2/access_log" common
</VirtualHost>

The first section is for your site and the second one for cust2's site. So cust2 will put his site into the WWW folder located in his home directory. You will put your content in your old DocumentRoot. (You will need to customize /usr/local/apache2/conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf).