Pointing a domain to apache server without virtual hosts or custom conf files

Question

We have a SaaS product and we give websites for customers. The customers can request to have their own domain pointed to their website. At the moment we use httpd.conf file to add a VirtualHost entry pointing to the same document directory. Afterwards the database will load the website by matching the URL. We realized there are couple of problems with this approach and this is not scalable at all.

If there is a mistake in httpd.conf file their is potential the whole product might not work. This has actually happen. Also, we use WHM and cPanel, so when we add a mod or does a tweak in the live server, the entire httpd.conf gets rewritten having us to replace/add existing virtual host entries to the file.

Strangely in our QA server, i did not have to add any virtualhost entries and as soon as a new domain is pointed, the website is picked up from the database. I realized the virtualhost entries were needed in the live server only. Both have Apache 2.4 CentOS installed. Is there a reason behind this? Im sure this has something to do with a configuration change.

Hope someone can point me in the right direction where i can achieve the same in our live server environment.

Cheers!

Answer 1

In Apache VirtualHosts add versatility but you are not forced to create any.

Apache will listen to the interfaces you tell it to (with the Listen directive) and when receiving requests if you haven't defined any virtualhosts the default server config will answer all requests.

The moment you add a virtualhost, that will be used to answer all requests, and if you add more virtualhosts the servername in them is examined to determine where to deliver requests depending on the incoming host header.

There really isn't anything more to it really.