How to avoid repeating virtualhost properties in apache? - apache

Question

I want my sites served via SSL to have a bunch of the same properies in my apache2 config. Unfortunately, I can't find anywhere that demos how to do that. Here's my config at the moment for two separate servers accessed by www.mydomain.com and blog.mydomain.com:
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
ServerName www.mydomain.com
# Repeated stuff
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.com/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.com/privkey.pem
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
DocumentRoot /var/www/wordpress
ServerName blog.mydomain.com
# Repeated stuff
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.com/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.com/privkey.pem
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>
As you can see, both virtualhosts have a lot of the same properties under #Repeated stuff. How can I specify these properties once and then have ONLY these virtualhosts inherit those properties? E.g. can virtualhosts be nested?

Answer 1

mod_macro gave me just what I wanted. On ubuntu it can simply be enabled with sudo a2enmod macro. My apache2 SSL config now looks something like this:
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<Macro SSLStuff>
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.mydomain.com/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.mydomain.com/privkey.pem
</Macro>
<VirtualHost *:443>
Use SSLStuff
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
ServerName mydomain.com
ServerAlias www.mydomain.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
Use SSLStuff
DocumentRoot /var/www/wordpress
ServerName blog.mydomain.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
Use SSLStuff
ServerName mynodeapp.mydomain.com
ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:5000/
ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:5000/
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>