PHP Domain Mapping Script

Question

I don't know what is the exact term for this, so my title could be incorrect.

Basically what I what to do is to write a PHP script that has an input field:

Domain Name: <input type='text' name='dname' id='dname' value='http://example.com' />
<input type='submit' name='addname' value='Add A Domain' />

When user type their own domain into the text field and press submit, the script will automatically make a directory, copy some PHP scripts there and map the domain name to there. (The domain name is pointing to our server, of course.)

I have already figured out the mkdir() and copy() part, but I couldn't figure out the mapping part. How to add an entry to map http://example.com to /home/user/public_html/copy1/ automatically, using PHP?

I'm pretty sure you're going to need Apache VirtualHosts for that... Do you have root-level server access? (Note: assuming Apache here, but this applies to all types of servers) — Tom van der Woerdt
– Tom van der Woerdt, Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 14:26
If you are not using any url encoding or any framework here already...then you can parse the url..as if "example.com/new/rajat" is the value form input field then you can make it /home/user/public_html/new/rajat...all you'll need to do will be to append the portion after .com to ..../public_html/ — Rajat Singhal
– Rajat Singhal, Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 14:42
@Rajat nope. The directory name doesn't matter anyway. After mapping, the user won't see the /home/user/public_html/copy1/ when using FTP, they will only see the files on that directory only. And like redShadow says, we can just slugify the domain name and use it instead. — Rufas Wan
– Rufas Wan, Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 18:35

redShadow · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-01 15:45:28Z

2

While you could do that directly from your PHP page, I suggest not to do that, for many reasons, from high failure risks (in case page execution gets interrupted suddenly, for example) to security risks (your httpd user will have write access to its own configuration + some stuff on the filesystem where it shouldn't).

Some times ago I wrote a similar control "website creation control panel" that works pretty much this way:

The php script receives the website creation request and stores it somewhere (e.g. in a database). dot.
Another script, running as root via cron each, let's say, five minutes checks the website creation requests queue. If there is any:
- Mark the site creation task as "locked"
- Create the directory at appropriate location, populate with scripts etc.
- Change all the permissions as needed
- Create new virtualhost configuration, and enable it
- Make the webserver reload its own configuration
- Mark the site creation task as "done"

The second script can be written in whatever language you like, PHP, Python, Bash, ...

About apache configuration

To create a directory "mapped" to your domain, you could use something like this:

First of all, "slugify" your domain name. I usually take the (sanitized!) domain name, and convert all dots with double-dash (that is not a valid domain name part). I don't like dots in file/directory names a part from file extension separation.

Then, you can create something like this (assuming domain is www.example.com):

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.exampple.com

  DocumentRoot `/my-sites/wwwroot/www--example--com`

  <Directory "/my-sites/wwwroot/www--example--com">
    Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>

  ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/www--example--com_error.log
  CustomLog /var/log/apache2/www--example--com_access.log vhost_combined
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ## redirect non-www to www
    ServerName www.example.com
    ServerAlias example.com

    RedirectMatch permanent ^(.*) http://www.example.com$1
</VirtualHost>

Assuming you are placing your site files in directories like /my-sites/wwwroot/www--example--com.

Some security-related improvements

In my case, I also preferred not running the second script by root either; to do so you have to add some changes in order to let a less privileged user do some things on your system:

Create a directory with write access for your user, let's say /my-sites/conf/vhosts
Create an apache virtualhost containing the following line: Include "/my-sites/conf/vhosts/*.vhost", and enable it

Then, let your user reload apache configuration, by installing sudo and adding this to your /etc/sudoers:

Cmnd_Alias A2RELOAD = /usr/sbin/apache2ctl graceful

youruser ALL=NOPASSWD: A2RELOAD
%yourgroup  ALL = NOPASSWD: A2RELOAD

And, of course, also give write permissions to your websites base directory to the user that will be used to run the script.

edited Jan 1, 2012 at 15:45

answered Jan 1, 2012 at 15:38

redShadow

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3 Comments

Rufas Wan Over a year ago

What if I protect the script and allows only a few selected people to access the form? Is it better?

redShadow Over a year ago

Of course you MUST secure the "visible" script with some kind of login / access control; in any case, you should create something as I described to perform these administrative tasks or you are very likely to incur in bugs / security issues.

foxenn_pro Over a year ago

@redShadow can you please help me with this question stackoverflow.com/questions/66022215/…

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

0

I think you need to add VirtualHosts to apache config (such as httpd.conf) like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerName example.com

DocumentRoot /home/user/public_html/copy1/

</VirtualHost>

Apache documents for virtual host config:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/name-based.html

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/mass.html

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

CommunityBot

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answered Jan 1, 2012 at 15:38

TopCaver

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Comments

Rufas Wan · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-06 08:07:06Z

It is over 10 months now, so I'll just suggest what I have found.

While writing directly to httpd.conf seems the only way, but recently our site change the server. It has cause us so much trouble in those file / folder permission, and the hosting company refuse to help us due to security concern.

So I have a second look and discovered I am using CPanel for hosting, I can certainly use Addon Domain feature to create and add in new domains.

But it has its limits. Since it is an addon domain, we can no longer limit the bandwidth and disk usage per domain. Everything is shared. But that doesn't matter to us anyway.

So far it works. You can do it by either using the CPanel API library available on the official cpanel website, or you can use the direct URL request way to create the domain. Since we are making a new wordpress install, we create a new database as well.

http://{username}:{password}@{mysite.com}:2082/frontend/x3/sql/addb.html?db={dbname}
http://{username}:{password}@{mysite.com}:2082/frontend/x3/sql/adduser.html?user={dbuser}&pass={dbpass}
http://{username}:{password}@{mysite.com}:2082/frontend/x3/sql/addusertodb.html?db={dbname}&user={dbuser}&ALL=ALL
http://{username}:{password}@{mysite.com}:2082/frontend/x3/addon/doadddomain.html?domain={newsite.com}&user={ftp_user}&dir={ftp_dir}&pass={ftp_pass}&pass2={ftp_pass}

It doesn't have to be wordpress. You can use this to install joomla, drupal, phpbb or even you custom script.

Hope it helps anyone who is reading this. Thanks.

can you please help me with this question stackoverflow.com/questions/66022215/…

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