Virtual host setup

Written by Balazs Halasy, 01/17/2005 Updated 05/22/2006 by Svitlana Shatokhina Maintainers: Balazs Halasy, Svitlana Shatokhina

This section describes how to set up a virtual host for eZ publish using the Apache webserver. A virtual host setup is only needed if eZ publish has been configured to use the host access method, which is the most secure method.

By making use of virtual hosts, it is possible to have several sites running on the same server. The sites are usually differentiated by the name they are accessed. Apache will look for a specified set of domains and use different configuration settings based on the domain that is accessed.

Generic virtual host setup

Virtual hosts are usually defined at the end of "httpd.conf", which is the main configuration file for Apache. Adding a virtual host for eZ publish can be done by copying the following lines and replacing the text encapsulated by the square brackets with actual values. Please refer to the next section for a real life example of using virtual hosts.

NameVirtualHost [IP_ADDRESS]

<VirtualHost [IP_ADDRESS]:[PORT]>
    <Directory [PATH_TO_EZPUBLISH]>
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>

    <IfModule mod_php4.c>
        php_admin_flag safe_mode Off
        php_admin_value register_globals 0
        php_value magic_quotes_gpc 0
        php_value magic_quotes_runtime 0
        php_value allow_call_time_pass_reference 0
    </IfModule>

    DirectoryIndex index.php

    <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
        RewriteEngine On
        Rewriterule ^/var/storage/.* - [L]
        Rewriterule ^/var/[^/]+/storage/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/var/cache/texttoimage/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/var/[^/]+/cache/texttoimage/.* - [L]
        Rewriterule ^/design/[^/]+/(stylesheets|images|javascript)/.* - [L]
        Rewriterule ^/share/icons/.* - [L]
        Rewriterule ^/extension/[^/]+/design/[^/]+/(stylesheets|images|javascripts?)/.* - [L]
        Rewriterule ^/packages/styles/.+/(stylesheets|images|javascript)/[^/]+/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/packages/styles/.+/thumbnail/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/favicon\.ico - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/robots\.txt - [L]
        # Uncomment the following lines when using popup style debug.
        # RewriteRule ^/var/cache/debug\.html.* - [L]
        # RewriteRule ^/var/[^/]+/cache/debug\.html.* - [L]
        RewriteRule .* /index.php
    </IfModule>

    DocumentRoot [PATH_TO_EZPUBLISH]
    ServerName [SERVER_NAME]
    ServerAlias [SERVER_ALIAS]

</VirtualHost>

[IP_ADDRESS]	The IP address of the virtual host, for example "128.39.140.28". Apache allows the usage of a wildcards here ("*").
[PORT]	The port on which the webserver listens for incoming requests. This is an optional setting, the default port is 80. The combination of an IP address and a port is often referred to as a socket. Apache allows the usage of a wildcards here ("*").
[PATH_TO_EZPUBLISH]	Path to the directory that contains eZ publish. This must be the full path, for example "/var/www/exponential-3.6.0".
[SERVER_NAME]	The host or the IP address that Apache should look for. If a match is found, the virtual host settings will be used.
[SERVER_ALIAS]	Additional hosts/IP addresses that Apache should look for. If a match is found, the virtual host settings will be used.

Please note that the "mod_rewrite" module must be enabled in "httpd.conf" in order to use the Rewrite Rules.

NameVirtualHost

The "NameVirtualHost" setting might already exist in the default configuration. Defining a new one will result in a conflict. If Apache reports errors such as "NameVirtualHost [IP_ADDRESS] has no VirtualHosts" or "Mixing * ports and non-* ports with a NameVirtualHost address is not supported", try skipping the NameVirtualHost line. For more info about the NameVirtualHost directive, see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/core.html#namevirtualhost.

SOAP and WebDAV

If you would like to use the SOAP and/or the WebDAV features of eZ publish, you'll have to add the following lines in the virtual host configuration:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^webdav\..*
RewriteRule ^(.*) /webdav.php [L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^soap\..*
RewriteRule ^(.*) /soap.php [L]

ServerAlias soap.example.com
ServerAlias webdav.example.com

In this section

Virtual host example This example demonstrates how to set up a virtual host on the Apache web server for an eZ publish installation located in "/var/www/example". Let's say that we want to access eZ publish by using the following URLs:

Contributors

Balazs Halasy Author 01/17/2005 Maintainer
Svitlana Shatokhina Updated 05/22/2006 Maintainer
Mahmoud Abu-Wardeh Commenter 12/06/2005
Björn Dieding Commenter 06/26/2006
Damien Pitard Commenter 01/12/2007
Kristof Coomans Commenter 02/14/2007

Comments (4 historical)

Written by readers of the earlier documentation sites, kept as they were.

Mistake in last rewrite rule

Mahmoud Abu-Wardeh · 12/06/2005 12:44 pm

When I tried the rewrite rules above, Apache (2.0.54) complained with "mod_rewrite: maximum number of internal redirects reached", resulting in a 500 error.
The solution is that the last rewrite rule should read:
RewriteRule .* index.php # no leading slash
See http://www.sitepoint.com/print/mod_rewrite-no-endless-loops for an explanation.
By the way, this VirtualHost setup is quite differet to those in the .htaccess_root file that shops with ez Publish 3.7.2 - would you recommend a selective merge of the two or to stick to this example?

.htaccess

Björn Dieding · 06/26/2006 04:24 pm

allman can you document this .htaccess file somewhere... not all have vhost controll but they want to use mod_rw

DirectoryIndex index.php

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^webdav\..*
RewriteRule ^(.*) webdav.php [L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^soap\..*
RewriteRule ^(.*) soap.php [L]

RewriteRule ^var/cache/debug.html.* - [L]
RewriteRule ^var/[^/]+/cache/debug.html.* - [L]
Rewriterule ^var/storage/.* - [L]
Rewriterule ^var/[^/]+/storage/.* - [L]
RewriteRule ^var/cache/texttoimage/.* - [L]
RewriteRule ^var/[^/]+/cache/texttoimage/.* - [L]
Rewriterule ^design/[^/]+/(stylesheets|images|javascript)/.* - [L]
Rewriterule ^share/icons/.* - [L]
Rewriterule ^extension/[^/]+/design/[^/]+/(stylesheets|images|javascripts?)/.* - [L]
Rewriterule ^packages/styles/.+/(stylesheets|images|javascript)/[^/]+/.* - [L]
RewriteRule .* index.php [L]

urls in cache probleme

Damien Pitard · 01/12/2007 04:54 pm

with this config, when somebody access your site using:
http://yoursite.com/anything/here/index.php
and if the cache need to be regenerated, urls will be prefixed with /anything/here
to avoid this problem, we need to remove index.php from url doing an apache redirection
replace
<Directory [PATH_TO_EZPUBLISH]>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
by
<Directory [PATH_TO_EZPUBLISH]>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
RedirectMatch (.*)\index\.php$ $1
</Directory>
Binary files world-readable

Kristof Coomans · 02/14/2007 12:23 pm
With a rewrite rule setup like the one above, binary files (in var/storage/original) will be world-readable (unless you protect them in another way). This can be a serious security risk.
Isn't it better to replace
```
Rewriterule ^/var/[^/]+/storage/.* - [L]
```
with more specific rules?
```
Rewriterule ^/var/[^/]+/storage/images/.* - [L]
Rewriterule ^/var/[^/]+/storage/images-versioned/.* - [L]
Rewriterule ^/var/[^/]+/storage/images/.* - [L]
```
The same counts for
```
Rewriterule ^/var/storage/.* - [L]
```

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