Linux and PHP web application support and development (Bromsgrove, UK)
When using Apache to host websites, developers tend to either have one configuration file with multiple sites defined within in it (often /etc/httpd/httpd.conf or similar), or end up dealing with a swarm of separate files in /etc/apache2/sites-available – one per domain.
If all the domains are identical, in terms of file structure – apart from the hostname – then we can use Apache’s mod_vhost_alias module to simplify the configuration. When combined with mod_rewrite and use of some Apache environment variables (e.g. %{HTTP_HOST}), your configuration can become much more manageable.
So, you can go from multiple virtual hosts configured similar to the below – where all that’s changing between site(s) is effectively the hostname – :
<Virtualhost *:80>
ServerName mydomain.com
ServerAlias www.mydomain.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/mydomain.com/public/
<Location '/'>
Allow from ALL
AllowOverRide ALL
</Location>
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/mydomain.com-access.log combined
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
</VirtualHost>
To :
<VirtualHost *:80>
UseCanonicalName Off
VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/%0/public/
<Location '/'>
Allow from ALL
AllowOverRide ALL
</Location>
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/%{HTTP_HOST}-access.log combined
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
</VirtualHost>
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
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