Creating Wildcard Sub Domain Using Apache VirtualHost - apache

Question

I want to have this situation :
if user request using this URL : example.com or www.example.com,
user will see index.php in this directory /home/admin1/public_html/
but when user request using other sub domain (wildcard) for example : freediscount.example.com, user will see index.php in this path : /home/admin1/public_html/userweb/freediscount.example.com
technical support on my hosting suggest me to use this method : http://www.wiredstudios.com/php-programming/setting-up-wildcard-dns-for-subdomains-on-cpanel.html
based on that tutorial, the PHP has a new job... to redirect on specific folder when user request with sub domain. I don't like this method. for me, it would be better if Apache can handle this.
nearly close to what I need is this method : Virtualhost For Wildcard Subdomain and Static Subdomain
but, I have a problem with VirtualHost setting, how to create VirtualHost correctly for that situation?
here's what I've done but didn't work :
## I think this one is for www or without www, automatically generated with WHM
<VirtualHost xx.xx.xx.xx:80>
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
DocumentRoot /home/admin1/public_html
</VirtualHost>
## Here's what I'm trying to add
<VirtualHost xx.xx.xx.xx:80>
ServerName example.com
DocumentRoot /home/admin1/public_html/userweb/*
</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

Wildcard sub-domains are definitely possible using Apache virtual hosts.
I had basically the same requirements and managed to get it working with Apache's mod_vhost_alias.so module. Try this in your http-vhosts.conf file:
DocumentRoot "/home/admin1/public_html/userweb/"
<Directory "/home/admin1/public_html/userweb/">
Options None
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /home/admin1/public_html/
ServerName www.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
VirtualDocumentRoot /home/admin1/public_html/userweb/%1.example.com/
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /home/admin1/public_html/
ServerName example.com
</VirtualHost>
Note that I haven't tested this, but it's pretty close to the solution that worked for me.
Full details of my solution are here:
http://www.calcatraz.com/blog/wildcard-subdomains-in-apache-1422

Answer 2

Try with this:
NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /home/admin1/public_html/
ServerName www.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /home/admin1/public_html/userweb/freediscount.example.com
ServerName other.example.com
ServerAlias *.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /home/admin1/public_html/
ServerName example.com
</VirtualHost>
Order of virtual hosts & their specificity matters.