.htaccess file - Wildcard Subdomains Redirect

Question

I have got a lot of subdomains configured using wildcard eg

subdomain1.domain.com
subdomain2.domain.com
subdomain3.domain.com
(...)
subdomain89.domain.com

etc etc.

They are point to /public_html/. Inside the public_html I have created

/public_html/subdomain1
/public_html/subdomain2
/public_html/subdomain3
(..)
/public_html/subdomain89

sub-folders.

I would like to redirect all request from subdomains (any) to index.php files within the respective sub-folders eg:

http://subdomain1.domain.com/
http://subdomain1.domain.com/about_us.php
http://subdomain1.domain.com/contact.php

redirects to /public_html/subdomain1/index.php.

http://subdomain2.domain.com/
http://subdomain2.domain.com/about_us.php
http://subdomain2.domain.com/contact.php

redirects to /public_html/subdomain2/index.php etc etc.

This is my .htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?([a-z0-9-]+)\.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule !^([a-z0-9-]+)($|/) /%2%{REQUEST_URI}/index.php [PT,L]

When I access subdomain1.domain.com i see the index.php file from /public_html/subdomain1 but when I access subdomain1.domain.com/about_us.php i got 404. Any ideas?

Thanks

Answer 1

I have figured it out. This is the working code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?([a-z0-9-]+)\.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule !^([a-z0-9-]+)($|/) /%2%{REQUEST_URI}/ [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule . index.php [L]

:-)

Answer 2

First make sure that your .htaccess file is in your document root (the same place as index.php) or it'll only affect the sub-folder it's in (and any sub-folders within that - recursively).

Next make a slight change to your rule so it looks something like:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?path=$1 [NC,L,QSA]

At the moment you're just matching on . which is one instance of any character, you need at least .* to match any number of instances of any character.

The $_GET['path'] variable will contain the fake directory structure, so /mvc/module/test for instance, which you can then use in index.php to determine the Controller and actions you want to perform.

If you want the whole shebang installed in a sub-directory, such as /mvc/ or /framework/ the least complicated way to do it is to change the rewrite rule slightly to take that into account.

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /mvc/index.php?path=$1 [NC,L,QSA]

And ensure that your index.php is in that folder whilst the .htaccess file is in the document root.

Alternative to $_GET['path'] (updated Feb '18 and Jan '19)

It's not actually necessary (nor even common now) to set the path as a $_GET variable, many frameworks will rely on $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] to retrieve the same information - normally to determine which Controller to use - but the principle is exactly the same.

This does simplify the RewriteRule slightly as you don't need to create the path parameter (which means the OP's original RewriteRule will now work):

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^.*$ /index.php [L,QSA]

However, the rule about installing in a sub-directory still applies, eg

RewriteRule ^.*$ /mvc/index.php [L,QSA]