I made an AWS EC2 Instance and get an Elastic IP.
The Elastic IP was used to set a Domain Name (Bought from GoDaddy) to the AWS EC2 Instance.
The EC2 Instance is running an Apache2 server.
According to the manual, I'm supposed to replace index.html in /var/www/html/ with the index.html of my own, which I did.
When I use the Elastic IP, the index.html page that I set is displayed.
However when I use the Domain Name, for some reason it gives me the default apache2 page, even though that file no longer exists since it was overwritten. I can access the index.html with DomainName.in/index.html.
Simply put :
- DomainName.in gives apache2 default index.html which shouldn't exist anymore
- DomainName.in/index.html gives the page that I want to show up
- ElasticIP and ElasticIP/index.html both give the page I want to show up
How can I make it so that just typing the Domain Name in the browser will take me to the index.html page that I want it to go to ?
You need to set DirectoryIndex in your virtualhost configuration which is located here: /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
If that is not where your config file is located, you can find it by running: /usr/sbin/apache2 -V | grep SERVER_CONFIG_FILE
<virtualhost *:80>
ServerName domain.com
ServerAlias www.domain.com
# Index file and Document Root (where the public files are located)
DirectoryIndex home.html index.html
DocumentRoot /var/www
</virtualhost>
Ok so it turns out everything is fine, but the changes take time to propagate through the DNS for some reason.
The changes register after about half an hour.
I used to access my website directly like so:
100.100.100.100/project1/public
I was also using an edit tool and accessing it like so:
100.100.100.100/tool
I added a subdomain (dev.domain.com) to my A records and updated my apache httpd.conf file like so:
NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.dev.domain.com
ServerAlias dev.domain.com
ServerAdmin email#domail.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/project1/public
</VirtualHost>
and now I can access my website directly by typing my subdomain: - dev.domain.com.
But since I did that, I cannot access my edit tool the way I used too (100.100.100.100/tool) anymore. It looks like apache is trying to access my website (project1) when I type 100.100.100.100/tool
Is there a way to setup my subdomain so it only access my website located at /var/www/html/project1/public without affecting any other documents I have under /var/www/html/ ??? without affecting, e.g.:
/var/www/html/tool
/var/www/html/project2
/var/www/html/project3
I typed in the following command and got:
# apachectl -t -D DUMP_VHOSTS
httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 100.100.100.100 for ServerName
VirtualHost configuration:
wildcard NameVirtualHosts and _default_ servers:
*:80 www.dev.domain.com (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:1021)
Syntax OK
Sorry for asking this question again. Even though this has been asked and discussed quite a bit I cannot seem to find the right solution for a local dev environment using VirtualHost. I am using XAMPP Portable for Windows for dev work but assume this is the same for any other local server with regards to the .htaccess file.
DocumentRoot of VirtualHost is D:\dev\www\ for example.
ServerName is devwork.webdev for example.
HOSTS entry is 127.0.0.1 devwork.webdev.
VirtualHost file does have a default DocumentRoot being DocumentRoot "D:/xampp/htdocs". It works just fine.
The projects are each in a folder under D:\dev\www\ for example D:\dev\www\project01\ or D:\dev\www\project02\ and so on and show nicely in the browser when going to devwork.webdev with Options Indexes FollowSymLinks enabled. Apache is not showing any error and the access log file is also OK, things are working.
Now in my HTML when I use Project 01 a click on the link does link me to D:\dev\www\ showing all the projects I have in that folder.
Instead I would like to be linked to the root of the project, being D:\dev\www\project01\ or rather http://devwork.webdev/project01/.
How can I get that to work?
I am looking for a solution to this so that I can do dev work locally and without changing the HTML later FTP the data to the live host's root and it will work.
I have read and tried the following:
http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/redirecting-a-web-folder-directory-to-another-in-htaccess/
https://perishablepress.com/redirect-subdirectory-to-root-via-htaccess/ .htaccess How to redirect root URL to subdirectory files, rewrite to clean URL AND not affect subdomains?
http://alexcican.com/post/how-to-remove-php-html-htm-extensions-with-htaccess/
https://stackoverflow.com/a/990405/1010918
How to redirect /directory/index.html and /directory/index.php to /directory/
Redirecting /directory/index.html to /directory/
with
How to remove .html from URL
and
http://forums.modx.com/thread/77211/endless-friendly-url-redirect-from-subdomain-folder-location
being closest to what I think I need but I must be doing something wrong since I always arrive at the DocumentRoot instead of the folder where the project is kept under the DocumentRoot.
Thank you for any help.
This seems closest:
Add VirtualHost definition for each project you want to access. (I'm
not sure how to do it on XAMPP for Windows).
For example, project01.devwork.webdev...
Set DocumentRoot for this VirtualHost to D:\dev\www\project01...
Add the hostname to your /etc/hosts/ file.
Open http://project01.devwork.webdev/ in your browser.
You should see the application in D:\dev\www\project01, while all URLs
will be based on "/".
What happens in the background:
When you open the URL http://project01.devwork.webdev/ in your browser, it will (as usual) translate it to IP address, but along with the request, it will also send Host header with the entered hostname:
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: project01.devwork.webdev
Based on the Host field, Apache will decide which VirtualHost it needs to "pretend" to be, and serve files from the respective direcory.
However, if you need to have index of the projects, you will have to create it manually with full URLs.
An alternative with the given logic would be to simply add a VirtualHost for each project in D:dev\www\projectname by giving it its own domain instead of a subdomain on the host.
There is little difference there now when already editing httpd-vhosts.conf (using XAMP this file is in InstallDir and then in apache\conf\extra )but ideally it makes copying the local HTML to the live server without changing the HTML possible.
So this is something devs doing local work should keep in mind. I certainly will!! Thank you for your help and information.
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "D:/dev/www/newprojectname"
ServerName newdomainname.webdev
ServerAlias www.newdomainname.webdev
ErrorLog "D:/dev/www/log/dev-apache.error.log"
CustomLog "D:/dev/www/log/dev-apache.access.log" common
<Directory "D:/dev/www/newprojectname">
AllowOverride All
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
Require local
# more detailed local
# Require ip 192.168.188
# or the IP from your local network
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
I am running Windows 7 with an XAMPP local server with an installation of WordPress. I know this one works correctly, I've used it many times. I have a MySQL database for it and it sits in htdocs/wordpress.
Now, I have a contract in which I'm working for someone on another WordPress theme and would like to have this as a separate database and install. So, I make another folder in htdocs, let's call it folder2. I then create another database in MySQL, import the db I was given, and create a user to match the wp-config.php file of this install. No problem, except that it points to "localhost/folder2" and I need it to point to "local.folder2.com" to match the contractor.
So I hunt around the web and stumble on VirtualHosts for XAMPP. I go to /System32/drivers/etc/hosts and add the domain.
127.0.0.1 localhost ## Already here for XAMPP purposes
127.0.0.1 local.folder2.com ## URL to point localhost/folder2 towards
I then go to /xampp/apache/conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf and add the necessary Virtual Host.
NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
DirectoryRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/folder2"
ServerName local.folder2.com
</VirtualHost>
I restart Apache and MySQL. Problem is, now local.folder2.com works, but "localhost/wordpress/" does not. Using that URL directs me to the theme and db of folder2, baffling me entirely. Any ideas? I realize I can just work on one and not the other, but if I ever have more than one client at a time, switching it all out isn't going to work.
In this case, localhost stopped working because when another vhost was declared, no longer did the inherent connection between http://localhost.com and the directory "/htdocs" work. The solution was to add a vhost for the original location and then add a second one for the new location. Simple as:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName localhost
DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/wordpress" # Where I had localhost pointing
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName local.folder2.com
DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/folder2"
<Directory "C:/xampp/htdocs/folder2">
Allow Override All
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Of course, you then must add them to your hosts file:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 local.folder2.com
Restart Apache server, and you're good to go.
I know there have been a few threads on this before, but I have tried absolutely everything suggested (that I could find) and nothing has worked for me thus far...
With that in mind, here is what I'm trying to do:
First, I want to allow users to publish pages and give them each a subdomain of their choice (ex: user.example.com). From what I can gather, the best way to do this is to map user.example.com to example.com/user with mod_rewrite and .htaccess - is that correct?
If that is correct, can somebody give me explicit instructions on how to do this?
Also, I am doing all of my development locally, using MAMP, so if somebody could tell me how to set up my local environment to work in the same manner (I've read this is more difficult), I would greatly appreciate it. Honestly, I have been trying a everything to no avail, and since this is my first time doing something like this, I am completely lost.
Some of these answers have been REALLY helpful, but for the system I have in mind, manually adding a subdomain for each user is not an option. What I'm really asking is how to do this on the fly, and redirect wildcard.example.com to example.com/wildcard -- the way Tumblr is set up is a perfect example of what I'd like to do.
As far as how to set up the DNS subdomain wildcard, that would be a function of your DNS hosting provider. This would be different steps depending on which hosting provider you have and would be a better question for them.
Once you've set that up with the DNS host, from your web app you really are just URL rewriting, which can be done with some sort of module for the web server itself, such as isapi rewrite if you're on IIS (this would be the preferred route if possible). You could also handle rewriting at the application level as well (like using routing if on ASP.NET).
You'd rewrite the URL so http://myname.example.com would become http://example.com/something.aspx?name=myname or something. From there on out, you just handle it as if the myname value was in the query string as normal. Does that make sense? Hope I didn't misunderstand what you're after.
I am not suggesting that you create a subdomain for each user, but instead create a wildcard subdomain for the domain itself, so anything.example.com (basically *.example.com) goes to your site. I have several domains setup with MyDomain. Their instructions for setting this up is like this:
Yes, you can configure a wild card but
it will only work if you set it up as
an A Record. Wildcards do not work
with a C Name. To use a wildcard, you
use the asterisks character ''. For
example, if you create and A Record
using a wild card, *.example.com,
anything that is entered in the place
where the '' is located, will resolve
to the specified IP address. So if you
enter 'www', 'ftp', 'site', or
anything else before the domain name,
it will always resolve to the IP
address
I have some that are setup in just this way, having *.example.com go to my site. I then can read the base URL in my web app to see that ryan.example.com is what was currently accessed, or that bill.example.com is what was used. I can then either:
Use URL rewriting so that the subdomain becomes a part of the query string OR
Simply read the host value from the accessed URL and perform some logic based on that value.
Does that make sense? I have several sites set up in just this exact way: create the wildcard for the domain with the DNS host and then simply read the host, or base domain from the URL to decide what to display based on the subdomain (which was actually a username)
Edit 2:
There is no way to do this without a DNS entry. The "online world" needs to know that name1.example.com, name2.example.com,..., nameN.example.com all go to the IP address for your server. The only way to do this is with the appropriate DNS entry. You have to add the wildcard DNS entry for your domain with your DNS host. Then it's just a matter of you reading the subdomain from the URL and taking the appropriate action in your code.
The best thing to do if you are running *AMP is to do what Thomas suggests and do virtual hosts in Apache. You can do this either with or without the redirect you describe.
Virtual hosts
Most likely you will want to do name-based virtual hosts, as it's easiest to set up and only requires one IP address (so will also be easy to set up and test on your local MAMP machine). IP-based virtual hosts is better in some other respects, but you have to have an IP address for each domain.
This Wikipedia page discusses the differences and links to a good basic walk-thru of how to do name-based vhosts at the bottom.
On your local machine for testing, you'll also have to set up fake DNS names in /etc/hosts for your fake test domain names. i.e. if you have Apache listening on localhost and set up vhost1.test.domain and vhost2.test.domain in your Apache configs, you'd just add these domains to the 127.0.0.1 line in /etc/hosts, after localhost:
127.0.0.1 localhost vhost1.test.domain vhost2.test.domain
Once you've done the /etc/hosts edit and added the name-based virtual host configs to your Apache configuration file(s), that's it, restart Apache and your test domains should work.
Redirect with mod_rewrite
If you want to do redirects with mod_rewrite (so that user.example.com isn't directly hosted and instead redirects to example.com/user), then you will also need to do a RewriteCond to match the subdomain and redirect it:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^subdomain\.example\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/subdomain$1 [R]
You can put this in a .htaccess or in your main Apache config.
You will need to add a pair of rules like the last two for each subdomain you want to redirect. Or, you may be able to capture the subdomain in a RewriteCond to be able to use one wildcard rule to redirect *.example.com to example.com/
-- but that smells really bad to me from a security standpoint.
All together, vhosts and redirect
It's better to be more explicit and set up a virtual host configuration section for each hostname you want to listen for, and put the rewrite rules for each of these hostnames inside its virtual host config. (It is always more secure and faster to put this kind of stuff inside your Apache config and not .htaccess, if you can help it -- .htaccess slows performance because Apache is constantly scouring the filesystem for .htaccess files and reparsing them, and it's less secure because these can be screwed up by users.)
All together like that, the vhost config inside your Apache configs would be:
NameVirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80
# Your "default" configuration must go first
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
DocumentRoot /www/siteroot
# etc.
</VirtualHost>
# First subdomain you want to redirect
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
ServerName vhost1.example.com
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/vhost1$1 [R]
</VirtualHost>
# Second subdomain you want to redirect
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
ServerName vhost2.example.com
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/vhost2$1 [R]
</VirtualHost>
I realize that I'm pretty late responding to this question, but I had the same problem in regards to a local development solution. In another SO thread I found better solutions and thought I would share them for anyone with the same question in the future:
VMware owned wild card domain that resolves any subdomain to 127.0.0.1:
vcap.me resolves to 127.0.0.1
www.vcap.me resolves to 127.0.0.1
or for more versatility 37 Signals owns a domain to map any subdomain to any given IP using a specific format:
127.0.0.1.xip.io resolves to 127.0.0.1
www.127.0.0.1.xip.io resolves to 127.0.0.1
db.192.168.0.1.xip.io resolves to 192.168.0.1
see xip.io for more info
I am on Ubuntu 16.04 and since 14.04 I've using solution provided by Dave Evans here and it works fine for me.
Install dnsmasq
sudo apt-get install dnsmasq
Create new file localhost.conf under /etc/dnsmasq.d dir with the following line
#file /etc/dnsmasq.d/localhost.conf
address=/localhost/127.0.0.1
Edit /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf and add the following line
prepend domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1;
(You’ll probably find that this line is already there and you just need to uncomment it.)
Last one is restart the service
sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq
sudo dhclient
Finally, you should check if it's working.
dig whatever.localhost
note:
If you want to use it on your web server, you need to simply change the 127.0.0.0 to your actual IP address.
I had to do exactly the same for one of my sites. You can follow the following steps
If you've cPanel on your server, create a subdomain *, if not, you'd have to set-up an A record in your DNS (for BIND see http://ma.tt/2003/10/wildcard-dns-and-sub-domains/). On your dev. server you'd be far better off faking subdomains by adding each to your hosts file.
(If you used cPanel you won't have to do this). You'll have to add soemthing like the following to your apache vhosts file. It largely depends on what type of server (shared or not) you're running. THE FOLLOWING CODE IS NOT COMPLETE. IT'S JUST TO GIVE DIRECTION. NOTE: ServerAlias example.com *.example.com is important.
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
DocumentRoot /var/www/
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias example.com *.example.com
</VirtualHost>
Next, since you can use the PHP script to check the "Host" header and find out the subdomain and serve content accordingly.
First, I want to allow users to
publish pages and give them each a
subdomain of their choice (ex:
user.mysite.com). From what I can
gather, the best way to do this is to
map user.mysite.com to mysite.com/user
with mod_rewrite and .htaccess - is
that correct?
You may be better off using virtual hosts. That way, each user can have a webserver configuration pretty much independent of others.
The syntax goes something like this:
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /var/www/user
ServerName user.mysite.com
...
</VirtualHost>
From what I have seen on many webhosts, they setup a virtual host on apache.
So if your www.mysite.com is served from /var/www, you could create a folder for each user. Then map the virtual host to that folder.
With that, both mysite.com/user and user.mysite.com works.
As for your test enviroment, if you are on windows, I would suggest editing your HOSTS file to map mysite.com to your local PC (127.0.0.1), as well as any subdomains you set up for testing.
The solution I found for Ubuntu 18.04 is similar to this one but involves NetworkManager config:
Edit the file /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf, and add the line dns=dnsmasq to the [main] section
sudo editor /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
should look like this:
[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile
dns=dnsmasq
...
Start using NetworkManager's resolv.conf
sudo rm /etc/resolv.conf
sudo ln -s /var/run/NetworkManager/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf
Create a file with your wildcard configuration
echo 'address=/.localhost/127.0.0.1' | sudo tee /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/localhost-wildcard.conf
Reload NetworkManager configuration
sudo systemctl reload NetworkManager
Test it
dig localdomain.localhost
You can also add any other domain, quite useful for some types of authentication when using a local development setup.
echo 'address=/.local-dev.workdomain.com/127.0.0.1' | sudo tee /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/workdomain-wildcard.conf
Then this works:
dig petproject.local-dev.workdomain.com
;; ANSWER SECTION:
petproject.local-dev.workdomain.com. 0 IN A 127.0.0.1