How to let PHP to create subdomain automatically for each user

Question

How do I create subdomain like http   user mywebsite com   Do i have to access htaccess somehow  Is it actually simply possible to create it via pure php code or I need to use some external script-server side language   To those who answered  Well  then  should i ask my hosting if they provide some sort of DNS access

User · Answer

Simple PHP solution for subdomains and multi-domain web apps

Step 1. Provide DNS A record as "*" for domains (or domain) you gonna serve "example.org"

A record => *.example.org
A record => *.example.net

Step 2. Check uniquity of logins when user registering or changing login. Also, avoid dots in those logins.

Step 3. Then check the query

        // Request was http://qwerty.example.org
        $q = explode('.', $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
        /*
            We get following array
            Array
            (
                [0] => qwerty
                [1] => example
                [2] => org
            )
        */

        // Step 4.
        // If second piece of array exists, request was for 
        // SUBDOMAIN which is stored in zero-piece $q[0]
        // otherwise it was for DOMAIN

        if(isset($q[2])) {
            // Find stuff in database for login $q[0] or here it is "qwerty"
            // Use $q[1] to check which domain is asked if u serve multiple domains
        }

?>

This solution may serve different domains

qwerty.example.org
qwerty.example.net 

johnsmith.somecompany.com
paulsmith.somecompany.com

If you need same nicks on different domains served differently, you may need to store user choise for domain when registering login.

smith.example.org // Show info about John Smith
smith.example.net // Show info about Paul Smith

User · Answer

I do it a little different from Mark   I pass the entire domain and grab the subdomain in php   RewriteCond  REQUEST URI      png gif jpg   RewriteCond   REQUEST FILENAME   -f RewriteRule         index php uri  1 amp hostName   HTTP HOST    This ignores images and maps everything else to my index php file  So if I go to  http   fred mywebsite com album Dance now   I get back  http   fred mywebsite com index php uri album Dance now amp hostName fred mywebsite com   Then in my index php code i just explode my username off of the hostName   This gives me nice pretty SEO URLs

User · Answer

Don t fuss around with  htaccess files when you can use Apache mass virtual hosting    From the documentation       include part of the server name in the filenames   VirtualDocumentRoot  www hosts  2 docs   In a way it s the reverse of your question  every  subdomain  is a user  If the user does not exist  you get an 404   The only drawback is that the environment variable DOCUMENT ROOT is not correctly set to the used subdirectory  but the default document root in de htconfig

User · Answer

In addition to configuration changes on your WWW server to handle the new subdomain  your code would need to be making changes to your DNS records   So  unless you re running your own BIND  or similar   you ll need to figure out how to access your name server provider s configuration   If they don t offer some sort of API  this might get tricky   Update  yes  I would check with your registrar if they re also providing the name server service  as is often the case    I ve never explored this option before but I suspect most of the consumer registrars do not   I Googled for GoDaddy APIs and GoDaddy DNS APIs but wasn t able to turn anything up  so I guess the best option would be to check out the online help with your provider  and if that doesn t answer the question  get a hold of their support staff

User · Answer

Create Dynamic Subdomains using PHP and Htaccess    1  Root  htaccess  This file is redirection http   www yourwebsite com to http   yourwebsite com for home page use  All of the subdomain redirection to yourwebsite folder  RewriteEngine On  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST   www yourwebsite com RewriteRule      http   yourwebsite com  1  R 301 L   RewriteCond   HTTP HOST   yourwebsite  com   RewriteCond   REQUEST URI     yourwebsite folder  RewriteRule       yourwebsite folder  1  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          yourwebsite com RewriteCond   REQUEST URI     yourwebsite folder  RewriteRule       yourwebsite folder  1    2  Inside Folder  htaccess  This file is rewriting the subdomain urls   http   yourwebsite com index php siteName 9lessons to http   9lessons yourwebsite com  Options  FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On  RewriteBase    RewriteRule    aA-zZ    index php siteName  1 RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          yourwebsite com RewriteRule      index php siteName  1   More  htaccess tips  Htaccess File Tutorial and Tips   index php  This file contains simple PHP code  using regular expressions validating the subdomain value    lt  php  siteName     if   GET  siteName        sitePostName   GET  siteName     siteNameCheck   preg match     A-Za-z0-9   3 20   i    sitePostName      if  siteNameCheck              Do something  Eg  Connect database and validate the siteName          else         header  Location  http   yourwebsite com 404 php             gt    HTML Code  lt  DOCTYPE html gt   lt html gt   lt head gt   lt title gt Project Title lt  title gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt   lt  php if  siteNameCheck      gt    Home Page  lt  php   else     gt    Redirect to Subdomain Page   lt  php     gt   lt  body gt   lt  html gt    No Subdomain Folder  If you are using root directory htdocs public html  as a project directory  use this following  htaccess file   Options  FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On  RewriteBase    RewriteCond   HTTP HOST   www yourwebsite com RewriteRule      http   yourwebsite com  1  R 301 L   RewriteRule    aA-zZ    index php siteName  1 RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          yourwebsite com RewriteRule      index php siteName  1

User · Answer

You could  potentially  do a rewrite of the URL  but yes  you have to have control of your DNS settings so that when a user is added it gets its own subdomain

User · Answer

You re looking to create a custom A record  I m pretty sure that you can use wildcards when specifying A records which would let you do something like this    mywebsite com       IN  A       127 0 0 1  127 0 0 1 would be the IP address of your webserver   The method of actually adding the record will depend on your host   Doing it like http   mywebsite com user would be a lot easier to set up if it s an option  Then you could just add a  htaccess file that looks like this  Options  FollowSymLinks  RewriteEngine On RewriteRule    aA-zZ     dostuff php username  1  In the above  usernames are limited to the characters a-z  The rewrite rule for grabbing the subdomain would look like this  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          mywebsite com RewriteRule       dostuff php username  1   However  you don t really need any rewrite rules  The HTTP HOST header is available in PHP as well  so you can get it already  like  username   strtok   SERVER  HTTP HOST     quot   quot

User · Answer

First  you need to make sure your server is configured to allow wildcard subdomains  I achieved that in JustHost by creating a subomain manually named    I also specified a folder called subdomains as the document root for wildcard subdomains  Add this to a  htaccess file in your subdomains folder   RewriteEngine On RewriteCond   HTTP HOST    www  website  com  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST     w    website  com  RewriteCond   REQUEST URI   1                     1 RewriteRule          1  1  QSA    Finally  all you need to do is create a folder in your subdomains folder  then place the subdomain s files in that directory

User · Answer

I just wanted to add  that if you use CloudFlare  free   you can use their API to manage your dns with ease

User · Answer

You re looking to create a custom A record  I m pretty sure that you can use wildcards when specifying A records which would let you do something like this    mywebsite com       IN  A       127 0 0 1  127 0 0 1 would be the IP address of your webserver   The method of actually adding the record will depend on your host   Doing it like http   mywebsite com user would be a lot easier to set up if it s an option  Then you could just add a  htaccess file that looks like this  Options  FollowSymLinks  RewriteEngine On RewriteRule    aA-zZ     dostuff php username  1  In the above  usernames are limited to the characters a-z  The rewrite rule for grabbing the subdomain would look like this  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          mywebsite com RewriteRule       dostuff php username  1   However  you don t really need any rewrite rules  The HTTP HOST header is available in PHP as well  so you can get it already  like  username   strtok   SERVER  HTTP HOST     quot   quot

User · Answer

You could  potentially  do a rewrite of the URL  but yes  you have to have control of your DNS settings so that when a user is added it gets its own subdomain

User · Answer

You could  potentially  do a rewrite of the URL  but yes  you have to have control of your DNS settings so that when a user is added it gets its own subdomain

User · Answer

We setup wildcard DNS like they explained above  So the a record is   yourname com  Then all of the subdomains are actually going to the same place  but PHP treats each subdomain as a different account   We use the following code    url   SERVER  REQUEST URI     account str replace   yourdomain com      url     This code just sets the  account variable the same as the subdomain  You could then retrieve their files and other information based on their account   This probably isn t as efficient as the ways they list above  but if you don t have access to BIND and or limited  htaccess this method should work  as long as your host will setup the wildcard for you    We actually use this method to connect to the customers database for a multi-company e-commerce application  but it may work for you as well

User · Answer

This can be achieved in  htaccess provided your server is configured to allow wildcard subdomains  I achieved that in JustHost by creating a subomain manually named   and specifying a folder called subdomains as the document root for wildcard subdomains  Add this to your  htaccess file   RewriteEngine On RewriteCond   HTTP HOST    www  website  com  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST     w    website  com  RewriteCond   REQUEST URI   1                     1 RewriteRule          1  1  QSA    Finally  create a folder for your subdomain and place the subdomains files

User · Answer

In addition to configuration changes on your WWW server to handle the new subdomain  your code would need to be making changes to your DNS records   So  unless you re running your own BIND  or similar   you ll need to figure out how to access your name server provider s configuration   If they don t offer some sort of API  this might get tricky   Update  yes  I would check with your registrar if they re also providing the name server service  as is often the case    I ve never explored this option before but I suspect most of the consumer registrars do not   I Googled for GoDaddy APIs and GoDaddy DNS APIs but wasn t able to turn anything up  so I guess the best option would be to check out the online help with your provider  and if that doesn t answer the question  get a hold of their support staff

User · Answer

I do it a little different from Mark   I pass the entire domain and grab the subdomain in php   RewriteCond  REQUEST URI      png gif jpg   RewriteCond   REQUEST FILENAME   -f RewriteRule         index php uri  1 amp hostName   HTTP HOST    This ignores images and maps everything else to my index php file  So if I go to  http   fred mywebsite com album Dance now   I get back  http   fred mywebsite com index php uri album Dance now amp hostName fred mywebsite com   Then in my index php code i just explode my username off of the hostName   This gives me nice pretty SEO URLs

User · Answer

I do it a little different from Mark   I pass the entire domain and grab the subdomain in php   RewriteCond  REQUEST URI      png gif jpg   RewriteCond   REQUEST FILENAME   -f RewriteRule         index php uri  1 amp hostName   HTTP HOST    This ignores images and maps everything else to my index php file  So if I go to  http   fred mywebsite com album Dance now   I get back  http   fred mywebsite com index php uri album Dance now amp hostName fred mywebsite com   Then in my index php code i just explode my username off of the hostName   This gives me nice pretty SEO URLs

User · Answer

We setup wildcard DNS like they explained above  So the a record is   yourname com  Then all of the subdomains are actually going to the same place  but PHP treats each subdomain as a different account   We use the following code    url   SERVER  REQUEST URI     account str replace   yourdomain com      url     This code just sets the  account variable the same as the subdomain  You could then retrieve their files and other information based on their account   This probably isn t as efficient as the ways they list above  but if you don t have access to BIND and or limited  htaccess this method should work  as long as your host will setup the wildcard for you    We actually use this method to connect to the customers database for a multi-company e-commerce application  but it may work for you as well

User · Answer

The feature you are after is called Wildcard Subdomains  It allows you not have to setup DNS for each subdomain  and instead use apache rewrites for the redirection  You can find a nice tutorial here  but there are thousands of tutorials out there  Here is the necessary code from that tutorial    lt VirtualHost 111 22 33 55 gt      DocumentRoot  www subdomain     ServerName www domain tld     ServerAlias   domain tld  lt  VirtualHost gt    However as it required the use of VirtualHosts it must be set in the server s httpd conf file  instead of a local  htaccess

User · Answer

Don t fuss around with  htaccess files when you can use Apache mass virtual hosting    From the documentation       include part of the server name in the filenames   VirtualDocumentRoot  www hosts  2 docs   In a way it s the reverse of your question  every  subdomain  is a user  If the user does not exist  you get an 404   The only drawback is that the environment variable DOCUMENT ROOT is not correctly set to the used subdirectory  but the default document root in de htconfig

User · Answer

I do it a little different from Mark   I pass the entire domain and grab the subdomain in php   RewriteCond  REQUEST URI      png gif jpg   RewriteCond   REQUEST FILENAME   -f RewriteRule         index php uri  1 amp hostName   HTTP HOST    This ignores images and maps everything else to my index php file  So if I go to  http   fred mywebsite com album Dance now   I get back  http   fred mywebsite com index php uri album Dance now amp hostName fred mywebsite com   Then in my index php code i just explode my username off of the hostName   This gives me nice pretty SEO URLs

User · Answer

In addition to configuration changes on your WWW server to handle the new subdomain  your code would need to be making changes to your DNS records   So  unless you re running your own BIND  or similar   you ll need to figure out how to access your name server provider s configuration   If they don t offer some sort of API  this might get tricky   Update  yes  I would check with your registrar if they re also providing the name server service  as is often the case    I ve never explored this option before but I suspect most of the consumer registrars do not   I Googled for GoDaddy APIs and GoDaddy DNS APIs but wasn t able to turn anything up  so I guess the best option would be to check out the online help with your provider  and if that doesn t answer the question  get a hold of their support staff

User · Answer

Don t fuss around with  htaccess files when you can use Apache mass virtual hosting    From the documentation       include part of the server name in the filenames   VirtualDocumentRoot  www hosts  2 docs   In a way it s the reverse of your question  every  subdomain  is a user  If the user does not exist  you get an 404   The only drawback is that the environment variable DOCUMENT ROOT is not correctly set to the used subdirectory  but the default document root in de htconfig

User · Answer

Simple PHP solution for subdomains and multi-domain web apps

Step 1. Provide DNS A record as "*" for domains (or domain) you gonna serve "example.org"

A record => *.example.org
A record => *.example.net

Step 2. Check uniquity of logins when user registering or changing login. Also, avoid dots in those logins.

Step 3. Then check the query

        // Request was http://qwerty.example.org
        $q = explode('.', $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
        /*
            We get following array
            Array
            (
                [0] => qwerty
                [1] => example
                [2] => org
            )
        */

        // Step 4.
        // If second piece of array exists, request was for 
        // SUBDOMAIN which is stored in zero-piece $q[0]
        // otherwise it was for DOMAIN

        if(isset($q[2])) {
            // Find stuff in database for login $q[0] or here it is "qwerty"
            // Use $q[1] to check which domain is asked if u serve multiple domains
        }

?>

This solution may serve different domains

qwerty.example.org
qwerty.example.net 

johnsmith.somecompany.com
paulsmith.somecompany.com

If you need same nicks on different domains served differently, you may need to store user choise for domain when registering login.

smith.example.org // Show info about John Smith
smith.example.net // Show info about Paul Smith

User · Answer

In addition to configuration changes on your WWW server to handle the new subdomain  your code would need to be making changes to your DNS records   So  unless you re running your own BIND  or similar   you ll need to figure out how to access your name server provider s configuration   If they don t offer some sort of API  this might get tricky   Update  yes  I would check with your registrar if they re also providing the name server service  as is often the case    I ve never explored this option before but I suspect most of the consumer registrars do not   I Googled for GoDaddy APIs and GoDaddy DNS APIs but wasn t able to turn anything up  so I guess the best option would be to check out the online help with your provider  and if that doesn t answer the question  get a hold of their support staff

User · Answer

You re looking to create a custom A record  I m pretty sure that you can use wildcards when specifying A records which would let you do something like this    mywebsite com       IN  A       127 0 0 1  127 0 0 1 would be the IP address of your webserver   The method of actually adding the record will depend on your host   Doing it like http   mywebsite com user would be a lot easier to set up if it s an option  Then you could just add a  htaccess file that looks like this  Options  FollowSymLinks  RewriteEngine On RewriteRule    aA-zZ     dostuff php username  1  In the above  usernames are limited to the characters a-z  The rewrite rule for grabbing the subdomain would look like this  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          mywebsite com RewriteRule       dostuff php username  1   However  you don t really need any rewrite rules  The HTTP HOST header is available in PHP as well  so you can get it already  like  username   strtok   SERVER  HTTP HOST     quot   quot

User · Answer

This can be achieved in  htaccess provided your server is configured to allow wildcard subdomains  I achieved that in JustHost by creating a subomain manually named   and specifying a folder called subdomains as the document root for wildcard subdomains  Add this to your  htaccess file   RewriteEngine On RewriteCond   HTTP HOST    www  website  com  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST     w    website  com  RewriteCond   REQUEST URI   1                     1 RewriteRule          1  1  QSA    Finally  create a folder for your subdomain and place the subdomains files

User · Answer

You re looking to create a custom A record  I m pretty sure that you can use wildcards when specifying A records which would let you do something like this    mywebsite com       IN  A       127 0 0 1  127 0 0 1 would be the IP address of your webserver   The method of actually adding the record will depend on your host   Doing it like http   mywebsite com user would be a lot easier to set up if it s an option  Then you could just add a  htaccess file that looks like this  Options  FollowSymLinks  RewriteEngine On RewriteRule    aA-zZ     dostuff php username  1  In the above  usernames are limited to the characters a-z  The rewrite rule for grabbing the subdomain would look like this  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          mywebsite com RewriteRule       dostuff php username  1   However  you don t really need any rewrite rules  The HTTP HOST header is available in PHP as well  so you can get it already  like  username   strtok   SERVER  HTTP HOST     quot   quot

User · Answer

Don t fuss around with  htaccess files when you can use Apache mass virtual hosting    From the documentation       include part of the server name in the filenames   VirtualDocumentRoot  www hosts  2 docs   In a way it s the reverse of your question  every  subdomain  is a user  If the user does not exist  you get an 404   The only drawback is that the environment variable DOCUMENT ROOT is not correctly set to the used subdirectory  but the default document root in de htconfig

User · Answer

Create Dynamic Subdomains using PHP and Htaccess    1  Root  htaccess  This file is redirection http   www yourwebsite com to http   yourwebsite com for home page use  All of the subdomain redirection to yourwebsite folder  RewriteEngine On  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST   www yourwebsite com RewriteRule      http   yourwebsite com  1  R 301 L   RewriteCond   HTTP HOST   yourwebsite  com   RewriteCond   REQUEST URI     yourwebsite folder  RewriteRule       yourwebsite folder  1  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          yourwebsite com RewriteCond   REQUEST URI     yourwebsite folder  RewriteRule       yourwebsite folder  1    2  Inside Folder  htaccess  This file is rewriting the subdomain urls   http   yourwebsite com index php siteName 9lessons to http   9lessons yourwebsite com  Options  FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On  RewriteBase    RewriteRule    aA-zZ    index php siteName  1 RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          yourwebsite com RewriteRule      index php siteName  1   More  htaccess tips  Htaccess File Tutorial and Tips   index php  This file contains simple PHP code  using regular expressions validating the subdomain value    lt  php  siteName     if   GET  siteName        sitePostName   GET  siteName     siteNameCheck   preg match     A-Za-z0-9   3 20   i    sitePostName      if  siteNameCheck              Do something  Eg  Connect database and validate the siteName          else         header  Location  http   yourwebsite com 404 php             gt    HTML Code  lt  DOCTYPE html gt   lt html gt   lt head gt   lt title gt Project Title lt  title gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt   lt  php if  siteNameCheck      gt    Home Page  lt  php   else     gt    Redirect to Subdomain Page   lt  php     gt   lt  body gt   lt  html gt    No Subdomain Folder  If you are using root directory htdocs public html  as a project directory  use this following  htaccess file   Options  FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On  RewriteBase    RewriteCond   HTTP HOST   www yourwebsite com RewriteRule      http   yourwebsite com  1  R 301 L   RewriteRule    aA-zZ    index php siteName  1 RewriteCond   HTTP HOST          yourwebsite com RewriteRule      index php siteName  1

User · Answer

You could  potentially  do a rewrite of the URL  but yes  you have to have control of your DNS settings so that when a user is added it gets its own subdomain

User · Answer

The feature you are after is called Wildcard Subdomains  It allows you not have to setup DNS for each subdomain  and instead use apache rewrites for the redirection  You can find a nice tutorial here  but there are thousands of tutorials out there  Here is the necessary code from that tutorial    lt VirtualHost 111 22 33 55 gt      DocumentRoot  www subdomain     ServerName www domain tld     ServerAlias   domain tld  lt  VirtualHost gt    However as it required the use of VirtualHosts it must be set in the server s httpd conf file  instead of a local  htaccess

User · Answer

I just wanted to add  that if you use CloudFlare  free   you can use their API to manage your dns with ease

User · Answer

First  you need to make sure your server is configured to allow wildcard subdomains  I achieved that in JustHost by creating a subomain manually named    I also specified a folder called subdomains as the document root for wildcard subdomains  Add this to a  htaccess file in your subdomains folder   RewriteEngine On RewriteCond   HTTP HOST    www  website  com  RewriteCond   HTTP HOST     w    website  com  RewriteCond   REQUEST URI   1                     1 RewriteRule          1  1  QSA    Finally  all you need to do is create a folder in your subdomains folder  then place the subdomain s files in that directory

[php] How to let PHP to create subdomain automatically for each user?

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