How do I set-up subdomain.example.com

Factual Questions
1

Hi, I have a dedicated web-server hosting my web site. Let’s call it example.com

I have another dedicated server with a different IP address, hosting a web application (let’s call it “recordings”).

I’d like people to be able to type either http://recordings.example.com to get to the application, or http://www.example.com/recordings

Right now, the URL to get to the second server application is XX.XX.XX.XX/recordings where the XX’s signify the IP address.

I have root access to both servers and both servers are running CentOS. The server that’s hosting www.example.com has cpanel and WHM (web host manager). The server that’s hosting the recordings application (it’s in the var/www/html/recordings directory) has webmin.

What do I need to do? Thanks!

2

Recordings.example.com needs to resolve to the IP address of the new server. This is done with DNS. If your DNS is hosted you would normally use some web interface to add or change subdomains. If its on those linux boxes then you’ll probably need to change the zone file in BIND.

Once it resolves to the right domain you then need to tell your apache virtual server to take visitors from recordings.example.com to the proper virtual directory.

3

OK, thanks - there is a web interface at my registrar where I can add a recordings subdomain to example.com.

So, the server that hosts the recordings application (this is the server that has Webmin) is a dedicated server (not a virtual server). What do I need to do to tell it that recordings.example.com = the var/www/html/recordings directory?

Thanks.

4

Assuming the recordings.example.com server is running Apache (a good bet) you’ll need to modify the DirectoryIndex directive in the main server configuration to point to /var/www/html/recordings.

5

Here’s the CPanel wiki article on adding subdomains. In CPanel, you just add the subdomain name and tell it the document root /var/www/html/recordings

6

OK, I’m almost there…

I set-up the subdomain on example.com using web host manager, and typing in recordings.subdomain.com takes me to the other server as needed.

The thing I’m wrestling with now is that the recordings.example.com server hosts several applications. I want to map it so that if the server sees that the incoming address is recordings.example.com it goes to the /var/www/html/recordings directory.

I tried setting up an Apache virtual server using Webmin, and I specified recordings.example.com as the address and /var/www/html/recordings as the directory, but that sent all traffic to the /var/www/html/recordings directoy - I think because it saw that recordings.example.com resolved to the IP address of the server. I have the sense I need to do something with BIND DNS, on the receiving server, but I’m not sure what…

Can anyone suggest a nudge? Thanks for the prior help, and thanks in advance for the nudge!

7

I hate to do this - and I usually don’t, but [bump].