Dynamic SubDomain Creation / Domain Pointing
Hello Chaps, We've been working on some ideas for our new reseller panel and one things which really attracts me at the moment is making the panel they sign-in to brand able. ~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:320433 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
Re: Dynamic SubDomain Creation / Domain Pointing
Hello Chaps, We've been working on some ideas for our new reseller panel and one things which really attracts me at the moment is making the panel they sign-in to brand able. I've started so I'll finish ;-) I had an itchy trigger finger this morning. Now in the most part a brandable panel is very simple, allowing users to change the colour scheme, logo and headings in the site is all no problem at all. One thing I have seen done in other applications is the dynamic creation of a subdomain for each user which registers on the server, they can then access the login for that site from that domain, for instance, someone comes and registers with me, and they then have access to their branded panel through thiername.thinkbluemedia.co.uk and they don't have to come through our site. Not only this but they can also mask that subdomain with their own domain such as control.resellersdomain.com or whatever it might happen to be making things even more seamless for the clients which they are reselling too. Now I would assume that the latter part requires them to add CNAME records to their own DNS records and is out of my control, however, the first part is not. How would you guys go about creating these subdomains? presumably I don't want to actually create records in my own domains DNS settings as these would take 72 hours to propagate so can I perhaps do this with some type of URL rewrite? or perhaps a wildcard subdomain and I then use server side code CGI scope variables to to display the correct branding? I'd appreciate your thoughts on this guys, Rob ~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:320434 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
RE: Dynamic SubDomain Creation / Domain Pointing
Do you have to create subdomains? It's easy to create subdirectories and if they are masking with a CNAME record they should be able to subdirectory, so instead of: user1.servingdomain.com and user2.servingdomain.com they could have servingdomain.com/user1 and serving domain.com/user2. Couldn't that serve the same purpose? Robert B. Harrison Director of Interactive Services Austin Williams 125 Kennedy Drive, Suite 100 Hauppauge NY 11788 P : 631.231.6600 Ext. 119 F : 631.434.7022 http://www.austin-williams.com Great advertising can't be either/or. It must be . Plug in to our blog: AW Unplugged http://www.austin-williams.com/unplugged ~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:320437 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
Re: Dynamic SubDomain Creation / Domain Pointing
The subdomains shouldn't take any time to propagate, they should start working instantly. Its when you setup a brand new 2nd level domain (Foo.com) that it can take a while to propagate. When I did this before we dynamically wrote out zone files for the 2nd level domains, and used a wild card for the subdomains. For Apache we just modified one of two apache include files we setup, one for subdomains and one for full domains. I looked at doing it with a rewrite but it didn't work well for us for some reason. Maybe something to do with the logging or something. -Ryan Robert Rawlins wrote: Hello Chaps, We've been working on some ideas for our new reseller panel and one things which really attracts me at the moment is making the panel they sign-in to brand able. I've started so I'll finish ;-) I had an itchy trigger finger this morning. Now in the most part a brandable panel is very simple, allowing users to change the colour scheme, logo and headings in the site is all no problem at all. One thing I have seen done in other applications is the dynamic creation of a subdomain for each user which registers on the server, they can then access the login for that site from that domain, for instance, someone comes and registers with me, and they then have access to their branded panel through thiername.thinkbluemedia.co.uk and they don't have to come through our site. Not only this but they can also mask that subdomain with their own domain such as control.resellersdomain.com or whatever it might happen to be making things even more seamless for the clients which they are reselling too. Now I would assume that the latter part requires them to add CNAME records to their own DNS records and is out of my control, however, the first part is not. How would you guys go about creating these subdomains? presumably I don't want to actually create records in my own domains DNS settings as these would take 72 hours to propagate so can I perhaps do this with some type of URL rewrite? or perhaps a wildcard subdomain and I then use server side code CGI scope variables to to display the correct branding? I'd appreciate your thoughts on this guys, Rob ~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:320446 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
Re: Dynamic SubDomain Creation / Domain Pointing
The subdomains shouldn't take any time to propagate, they should start working instantly. Its when you setup a brand new 2nd level domain (Foo.com) that it can take a while to propagate. Neither should take any time to propagate. New entries to existing domains, and new domains themselves, don't have to propagate anywhere - all searches will resolve at the authoritative name server. Changed records may have been cached at intermediate name servers, and you'll have to wait for those records to expire. That's why it's a good idea to set a low time-to-live for records that you plan to change in the near future, because that determines the length of time that records will be cached. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ Fig Leaf Software provides the highest caliber vendor-authorized instruction at our training centers in Washington DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, or on-site at your location. Visit http://training.figleaf.com/ for more information ~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:320448 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
Re: Dynamic SubDomain Creation / Domain Pointing
Robert Rawlins wrote: How would you guys go about creating these subdomains? presumably I don't want to actually create records in my own domains DNS settings as these would take 72 hours to propagate so can I perhaps do this with some type of URL rewrite? or perhaps a wildcard subdomain and I then use server side code CGI scope variables to to display the correct branding? That's how I'd approach it. Put a wildcard entry that points to a dedicated IP for your portal app, then look up the hostname (cgi.server_name) against the database to determine which client it is. If someone wants to mask their own domain, give them a place to specify that in their account so it can find their account against the cgi variable (and they would have to CNAME that host to one of yours in case you have to change the IP at some point as you mentioned). There's really no need to muck with the DNS entries for each new client that joins the system. -- Justin Scott | GravityFree Member of the Technical Staff 1960 Stickney Point Road, Suite 210 Sarasota | FL | 34231 | 800.207.4431 941.927.7674 x115 | f 941.923.5429 www.GravityFree.com ~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:320450 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
Re: Dynamic SubDomain Creation / Domain Pointing
The subdomains shouldn't take any time to propagate, they should start working instantly. Its when you setup a brand new 2nd level domain (Foo.com) that it can take a while to propagate. I can confirm this as well. It is common practice with Hosting CP's like H-sphere to generate a random subdomain of instant access until DNS propagates. Are you using Apache or IIS? I saw a couple of projects for working with IIS http://iisweb.riaforge.org/ http://iisvdir.riaforge.org/ Here are the MS doc on talking to IIS http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/aee71684-36c0-40e1-b387-a19d2d0509f0.mspx?mfr=true G! On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 10:14 AM, Ryan Stille r...@cfwebtools.com wrote: The subdomains shouldn't take any time to propagate, they should start working instantly. Its when you setup a brand new 2nd level domain (Foo.com) that it can take a while to propagate. -- Gerald Guido http://www.myinternetisbroken.com To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. -- Thomas A. Edison ~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:320451 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
