How to limit mod_rewrite to a single directory?

vhosting with mod_rewrite

• Newbie seeks compassionate mod_rewrite guru... I'd like to do simple vhosting without physically changing the httpd.conf every time. I'm only looking to do ONE domain name (mydomain.net), but many virtual domains (user1.mydomain.net, user2.mydomain.net, etc.). I don't want to use mod_virtual_hosts because I want the option to do "regular" (non-mod_rewrite) virtual host setups that could use OTHER domain names in the future. So I need to use mod_rewrite, but I need to leave exceptions for icons, etc. (also an exception for /weblogs/ since Tiger Server is redirecting that to Blojsom (and Blojsom user) directories. I'd like www.mydomain.net stuff to go to the usual webroot and so I can put each vhost directory elsewhere (like beside the webroot - I'm open to suggestions). I know mod_rewrite magic is suppose to be strong, so I'm sure this is do-able, but nobody in my office has worked with it. Any pointers down the right path would be appreciated. I'm on OS X Tiger SERVER (but non-OS X-specific answers will still be helpful). Apache 1.3.33

• Answer:

  I do almost exactly the same thing as you want, but I have it slightly differently. The relevant potion is: RewriteEngine On RewriteMap lowercase int:tolower # Don't rewrite www.domain.com RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain.com.*$ # Only rewrite for xxx.domain.com addresses RewriteCond ${lowercase:%{HTTP_HOST}|NONE} ^(.+)$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(.+).domain.com.*$ RewriteRule ^(.+)$ /home/$1/website/html-%1/$1 Working through these: 1. The rewrite engine is enabled. 2. We setup to allow ourselves to lowercase a domain name. 3. Only if the domain does not match www.domain.com do we perform a rewrite. 4. The domain name (HTTP_HOST, an Apache variable) is lowercased using our RewriteMap command. 5. We will only perform a rewrite if the domain matches something.domain.com, and we match the something, which goes into %1 6. The actual rewrite rewrites the document root to /home/%1/website/html/$1. The %1 refers to the xxx part of the xxx.domain.com that we matched using line 5, and $1 refers to the rest of the URL (the page being accessed), so we preserve the page that we were trying to access before the rewrite. This works for me, it should work for you, cut, paste and amend.