We have a SaaS product and we give websites for customers. The customers can request to have their own domain pointed to their website. At the moment we use httpd.conf file to add a VirtualHost entry pointing to the same document directory. Afterwards the database will load the website by matching the URL. We realized there are couple of problems with this approach and this is not scalable at all.
If there is a mistake in httpd.conf file their is potential the whole product might not work. This has actually happen. Also, we use WHM and cPanel, so when we add a mod or does a tweak in the live server, the entire httpd.conf gets rewritten having us to replace/add existing virtual host entries to the file.
Strangely in our QA server, i did not have to add any virtualhost entries and as soon as a new domain is pointed, the website is picked up from the database. I realized the virtualhost entries were needed in the live server only. Both have Apache 2.4 CentOS installed. Is there a reason behind this? Im sure this has something to do with a configuration change.
Hope someone can point me in the right direction where i can achieve the same in our live server environment.
Cheers!
In Apache VirtualHosts add versatility but you are not forced to create any.
Apache will listen to the interfaces you tell it to (with the Listen directive) and when receiving requests if you haven't defined any virtualhosts the default server config will answer all requests.
The moment you add a virtualhost, that will be used to answer all requests, and if you add more virtualhosts the servername in them is examined to determine where to deliver requests depending on the incoming host header.
There really isn't anything more to it really.
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I've just reset my Ubuntu 14.04 LAMP server hosted with digital ocean. Could someone tell me the 'proper' way to do server configuration. My goal is to do everything as clean as possible (and hopefully well structured).
I intend on using the server mainly for programming and data analytics, however I do plan on hosting my website in /var/www/html. I also plan on using letsencrypt/certbot to get an easy SSL. With this in mind, these are the main goals I would like to accomplish:
1) Redirect the website to ALWAYS be served through https AND www.
2) Enable HSTS for the entire website.
3) Enable clean url's (remove .php extensions and what not).
Since I would like all of these properties to be used across the entire website, should the configuration be done inside of the /etc/apache2/ folder? Or should it be done inside of .htaccess?
And if it should be done inside of apache2 configuration, which file should I add it to? And finally, how exactly should it be added? (for example vhost 80/443, inside of a mod_something section, etc).
Thank you in advance, I would appreciate and consider any advice about Apache and htaccess!
We have a SaaS product and we give websites for customers. The customers can request to have their own domain pointed to their website. At the moment we use httpd.conf file to add a VirtualHost entry pointing to the same document directory. Afterwards the database will load the website by matching the URL. We have CentOS installed.
I think this is quite risky because if there is a mistake in httpd.conf file their is potential the whole product might not work. This has actually happen. Also, we use WHM and cPanel, so when we add a mod or does a server tweak the entire httpd.conf gets rewritten having us to replace/add existing virtual host entries to the file.
I will need a solution where i can add VirtualHost entries in a separate conf file or multiple conf files and load them via httpd.conf file which should automatically pick the newly added file/files without having to restart the server.
Can someone point me in the right direction where i can achieve the above.
Cheers!
You dont need to restart, just reload
My company has a LAMP server, and I am not an expert at web hosting but I manage basic tasks.
My server currently hosts about twelve different domains. Each domain has a .conf file in the sites-enabled directory, and they work fine. Let's say we have example1.com, example2.com, and example3.com, just to hopefully help explain this question.
Recently, a person I work with registered a bunch of new domains. With the domain registrar, they pointed the domains to our IP address. I believe this is called "parking" a domain. I have not set up a .conf file or enabled any of these new domains on our server yet. Let's say they are newsite1.com, newsite2.com, etc...
What's puzzling to me is that if one types one of the new domains into a browser, one of our existing domain shows up. Let's say it's example1.com. So, if you go to a browser and type in newsite1.com, or newsite2.com, you are taken to example1.com. Also, in the address bar at the top of the browser, it will be displayed as example1.com.
This is not the desired behaviour. For one thing, we did not choose, as far as I know, for example1.com to be the default, and it's not necessarily the website we would want to be the default. In any case, I don't know why the system is going to example1.com as opposed to example2.com or any of our other sites.
The desired behaviour would be for there to just be a general error, "this domain does not exist" or something like that. If there has to be a default website, we'd like to be able to choose it.
I've seen questions on Stack Oveflow that are similar, but they all presume one wants to set a default. When I look at the configuration files they reference, for example /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, they are empty, so in my case, there is nothing to unset.
How do I stop browsers from being redirected to the website that they are currently being directed to? How can I set it so that Apache just returns a "site not found" error instead of serving up a website?
The easiest way to fix this is name your .conf files starting with a number.
If you look at the default apache configs, you'll notice a file called "000-default.conf". Apache will load the files in number order - so just make your default virtual host .conf file be 000-whatever.conf.
I suppose you're using name based virtual hosts and the <VirtualHost> directive and this is what docs have to say:
If no matching name-based virtual host is found, then the first listed virtual host that matched the IP address will be used. As a consequence, the first listed virtual host for a given IP address and port combination is the default virtual host for that IP and port combination.
So when you say:
I've seen questions on Stack Oveflow that are similar, but they all
presume one wants to set a default.
... all I can add is that that's the way Apache works. I don't think it's inherently wrong to have a default host that serves a this domain does not exist page. I always do so in my Windows development box, typically by commenting out the default hosts at conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf file and adding my default host there.
If you ask for my opinion, it's rather questionable that Apache basically serves an arbitrary site when there's no match, thus making this customisation mandatory—and I've seen lots of live sites that don't do it.
I recently installed Bitnami trac and now I want to access it using my domain name.
I've made the necessary changes to the apache config file (httpd.conf) found in C:\Bitnami\trac-1.0.5-0\apache2\conf\ directory. I've installed trac in port 8080.
So this is the only change I made.
ServerName trac.mydomain.com:8080
I had trac in another server before, and that time also this was the only change I made to get my domain work with it. But this time it doesn't work.
Can somebody please tell me where I've missed? Do I have to update any other place?
According to your comment, you can access the server fine by using the IP address, but can't access it at all when using the domain name. This sounds like it might not be related to Trac at all. Here are a couple of things to try:
Run "nslookup your-domain-name.com". You should get a result that says "Addresses:" and lists your server's IP address. If you don't (or if you get a "Non-existent domain" error), then your DNS server isn't mapping your domain name to your IP address correctly.
Look through Apache's various log files on your server and see if there is any evidence of your request ever reaching your server. Whenever I do this, I first change LogLevel to debug in the Apache config files so that I get as much output as possible (restart Apache after changing the config file). If a 'debug'-level log doesn't even show that Apache saw the request, then something between your server and your local system is causing problems (a firewall perhaps). If the Apache logs do show that the request made it through, then the problem is likely an Apache configuration problem and the log output should provide hints as to how to continue.
Try connecting via VPN and then accessing your server by domain name (not IP address). If you can access the server by IP but not by name, then the server may not know its own domain name.
Bitnami developer here. By default bitnami installations accept petitions from any IP so you don't have to set the ServerName.
Although, if you want your page to be accessible using trac.yourdomain.com, you should consider using apache virtualHosts, could you try to follow this documentation page?
https://wiki.bitnami.com/Components/Apache#How_to_create_a_Virtual_Host.3f
I'm a complete newbie when it comes to servers, so I need some help. Basically, I want to have a subdomain on my VPS. I'm not too concerned where the files reside, though of course I would like them separated if possible.
I found a guide to doing this that basically sums the procedure up in five steps:
Create directories to host the content of a new virtual site.
Make a copy of the /etc/apache2/sites-available/defaults file with a site appropriate name.
Change the two /var/www/ entries to the actual directory of the new site.
Add the ServerName line with the real domain name you will be hosting.
Use a2ensite to enable the new site, and finally reload Apache2 so it knows about the new site
I tried all of this, but I can't get it to work. I didn't get any errors at any point during this process, but when I enter the address with the subdomain into my browser, I get a "Server not found" error.
The company that hosts my VPS has an admin page where I can set up subdomains. Stupid question: do I have to do reconfigure the DNS records or something while doing this, or is it likely that the problem is caused by something else?
Additional note: I followed a guide on howtoforge.com when setting up the server, which in hindsight may not have been the brightest move on my part. It is possible that I made a mistake there that is somehow affecting me now?
Assuming you've setup the subdomain correctly in your VPS' admin page, the only thing left to check here is that you've actually created the subdomain in your DNS administration page (have you?). For example, I use afraid.org to manage my DNS records and to add a subdomain, it's essentially:
Type: A
Subdomain: sparky
Domain: example.com
Destination: 120.34.2.3 (this would be your VPS' IP address)
In general, you add a (sub)domain by:
sparky.example.com A 120.34.2.3
Please keep in mind that you want to add an A record (this is important!).