Apache mass subdomain hosting

Question

I want to offer custom subdomains for my customers. I can add virtual host configuration for each subdomain but it gets a overwhelming job as the number of users increase.

What I currently use is like this:

NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
  DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite/user1
  ServerName user1.mysite.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
  DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite/user2
  ServerName user2.mysite.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
  DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite
  ServerName example.com
  ServerAlias www.mysite.com
</VirtualHost>

Is there a better way of configuring subdomains?

Is it possible to make a simple check and direct an non-existing virtual host to the main site?

PS: Some other Virtualhosts still need to be defined this way.

Answer 1

YES THERE IS.

Within your VirtualHost definition:

VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/multipledomains_root/%0

Then anything that comes at the HTTP_HOST header apache will try to match in %0

Look at (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_vhost_alias.html) to have a complete list of what you can do.