One development server with Apache with multiple Virtual Host?

Question

Let's said that I will have a unique development server sharing code for multiple developers. The code for each developer will be on it's home directory under sources so basically it will be something like ~/<developer_name>/sources. That server is running Apache 2.4.x.

I need that each developer could access their code by for example <developer_name>.domain.com. Off course the developer_name on the URL will match the name on the /home directory.

My solution is a Virtual Host per developer on the Apache config, is there any better solution and I am not aware?

Answer 1

We have a similar setup.

The one catch is that you'll want to have a whole subdomain for your server. So instead of jdoe.domain.com & bsmith.domain.com, you'll have jdoe.dev.domain.com and bsmith.dev.domain.com. You can almost think of the 'dev.domain.com' as the server.

You'll probably want to do something like this:

Apache module

Make sure that the vhost_alias module is enabled.

# a2enmod vhost_alias 

Apache config

(the key is the VirtualDocumentRoot directive)

<VirtualHost *:80> ServerName dev.domain.com ServerAlias dev.domain.com *.dev.domain.com VirtualDocumentRoot /home/%1/sources </VirtualHost> 

DNS entry

You need a DNS entry to point dev.domain.com and anything under it (*.dev.domain.com) to your development server.

If you want to get rid of the 'dev' subdomain, you'll have to make a DNS entry for every developer.

A BIND record in the domain.com zone could look like this:

*.dev A 10.1.1.1 

Answer 2

Do you need them to have their own domain names? If not, there is the built-in mod_userdir that will do this. Your developers would be at http://developers.domain.com/~<developer_name>/ (such as /~bob/). You would just define UserDir to be "sources" (the default is public_html).

The config is usually in httpd.conf, but you'd just need something like:

LoadModule userdir_module modules/mod_userdir.so <IfModule mod_userdir.c> UserDir sources </IfModule> 

You may also have a UserDir disable that you'll also have to comment out.