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Virtual host setup

Written by Geir Arne Waaler, Updated by Ricardo Correia Maintainers: Geir Arne Waaler, Ricardo Correia
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This part of the 4.x documentation is for Exponential 4.0, only reference section is common for all Exponential 4.x versions as well as Exponential 5.x "LegacyStack", please select the version you are using for the most up to date documentation!

This section describes how to set up a virtual host for Exponential using the Apache web-server. A virtual host setup is only needed if Exponential 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 Exponential 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_php5.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 content/treemenu/? /index_treemenu.php [L]
        RewriteRule ^/var/storage/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/var/[^/]+/storage/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/var/cache/texttoimage/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/var/([^/]+/)?cache/(texttoimage|public)/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/design/[^/]+/(stylesheets|images|javascript)/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/share/icons/.* - [L]
        RewriteRule ^/extension/[^/]+/design/[^/]+/(stylesheets|flash|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 Exponential. 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 Exponential, 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

Contributors

Comments (7 historical)

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

  1. Mistake in last rewrite rule

    Mahmoud Abu-Wardeh ·

    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?

  2. .htaccess

    Björn Dieding ·

    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]

  3. urls in cache probleme

    Damien Pitard ·

    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>

  4. Binary files world-readable

    Kristof Coomans ·

    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]

  5. One more rewrite rule for p3p files

    Gaetano ·

    The P3P rules mandate presence of some xml files describing treatment done by website owner of customer sensitive data.
    Those files are by default placed in the p3p folder at the root of the site.
    Their presence is important not to give headaches with cookies being refused to users of eg. ie 6+ (the eye on a red background icon in the status bar)
    To comply with this, you can
    - create a p3p folder at the root of the eZP installation, and put the xml files in there
    - add this rewrite rule to the vhost setup:
    RewriteRule ^/p3p/.+\.xml - [L]

  6. No subtree in admin content structure due to a rewrite rule error...

    JB ·

    The rule :
    RewriteRule content/treemenu/? /index_treemenu.php [L]
    contains an error that cause an empty content structure menu with only the root node (no subtree). You can use this rule instead :
    RewriteRule content/treemenu/?$ /index_treemenu.php [L]
    JB

    1. Rewrite rules are OK, but index_treemenu.php contains a bug

      Svitlana Shatokhina ·

      Starting from 4.0.1, the "treemenu" view of the "content" module does not use GET parameters anymore ( see http://issues.ez.no/11806 ). Because of this, the rewrite rules in the docs were updated ("$" removed).
      Problem when using the new rewrite rule appears because "index_treemenu.php" in 4.0.1 contains a bug ( see http://issues.ez.no/13528 ). With your suggestion (old rewrite rule, with "$") the system won't use "index_treemenu.php" at all, so the tree menu will work.
      However, for better performance it's recommended to download the updated "index_treemenu.php" from http://pubsvn.ez.no/nextgen/stable/4.0/index_treemenu.php and use the new rewrite rule (without "$").

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