So, I have a problem, and this may or may not be the place to ask this question, but I'm doing it anyway - since I've tried everything and nothing works …
Here goes:
I have a tracking script installed on a digital ocean server … it’s called CPVlab. It enables me to track clicks and gives me statistics on the click. What it does is catch info on a user and their behavior and it can rotate landing pages for split testing those landing pages. This is all done through internal redirects on the domain the script is installed on.
Let’s say it’s installed on : tracker.com
Another feature of the script is : I can enter an A record in the DNS I use and call it someothername.com and point it to the IP adres of the tracker.com.
This way, one can use different domains (tracking domains) in order to not have the main installation domain visible. This helps with customizing the look of different marketing campaigns (you don’t want them all to look like : tracker.com/? querystuff)…
So here’s the problem : It all used to work fine without https:// … But after installing letsencrypt (through an easyengine command for bothe tracker.com as well as tracking domains) the explained feature doesn’t work anymore.
When using **http://**someothername.com as an A record pointing to tracker.com, the server shows me a 404 not found status. And when I use a **https://**someothername.com as an A record pointing to the script, it tells me the connection is not secure. This while both domains have https certificates and they work if I put them in the browser direct. (it will show https).
However when I don’t use this tracking domain feature and just use the plain https://tracker.com domain, it works perfectly.
Maybe this question is a bit far out, but does anyone have an idea if this is related to letsencrypt ? I added the certificates through EE a few months ago, and I know EE uses certbot. However I am thinking that this problem may have something to do with letsencrypt not supporting wildcards at the time of install. Maybe this tracking script is designed in some way that the main domain uses the tracking domains as some sort of sub domain ?
Anyone have an idea about this ? I am definately STUCK here…
Thanks, Lex
Related
I have seen a lot of solutions that involve using .htaccess. I would like to know a way to create sub domains using only PHP. For my purposes, this also needs to work using non-host-specific mechanics so it would work on most hosts.
All I know is that I would need a wildcard CNAME record that says all sub domains point to x.x.x.x, but I don’t know what to do from here. What I think you need to do is create a folder that contains the code for the sub domains, and I have done this, but I cannot find a cross-host way to link the sub domain with the folder. There has to be a way to do this as I have seen it done, but I can not find a way that meets my needs.
The problem here is that PHP doesn't handle the request coming in, a web server (e.g. Apache or Nginx) does and it's the config for that software that determines where a request goes. Now the good news is that you can have wildcards in your config (at least for Apache and Nginx, YMMV if you're not using one of those), as long as you can access the config file (you'll need root access on the server). There is plenty of information available out there depending on what web server you are using so you can google that part.
Now, assuming you've done that part, in PHP you just need to check what the root domain for the request is. That information is stored in $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'], so you can use a simple script to figure out which subdomain has been requested and then launch the appropriate script for that subdomain. Something like this should do the trick:
// Assuming request comes from https://subdomain.mydomain.com
$subdomain = str_replace('.mydomain.com', '', $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
echo $subdomain // Outputs "subdomain"
This will capture multiple levels of subdomains as well, so if your request comes from https://sub1.sub2.subdomain.mydomain.com then $subdomain would contain sub1.sub2.subdomain.
Edit after comment
You can't do this with shared hosting. Basically the config panel you get with the host, when you set up a domain or subdomain it's modifying the config file on the server for you. There's no way a host would let anyone access the config through anything other than their control panel for security. It's possible that hosts will have a similar setup to your test server, where subdomains just work as they use wildcards by default, but I don't know that and there's no guarantee of that.
WordPress itself is just blogging software. It doesn't let you set up lots of separate websites with their own installations. What WordPress Multisite (I assume that's what you mean when you mention WordPress) is use a single installation to host multiple "sites", but it's still one installation, one single database. All of the posts, all the pages, they're all stored in a single database and if you got into that database you could easily include a page from one site on another just by editing some fields in the database. It's not designed for reselling or for multiple, completely separate entities. There are a whole host of security risks in doing that sort of thing. It's designed for single entities that want to split their sites up into multiple sites, but where it's all one company, or related companies. Universities with different departments is one example I read about before, each department has their own "site" and the main IT office has a super user that can access all of them as it's on one single installation.
I could do with a little more information on what you're trying to do, but it sounds like you're trying to do something like WPEngine, where they sell hosting space and install WordPress for you. But they have dedicated servers that run scripts that create the config files and install WordPress on your own individual hosting space using their servers. That's known as SaaS (Software as a Service) and from the little you have said seems what you are trying to do. People subscribe to your site and get their own instance of the software you're selling that they access through an admin portal. That's not something they can install on their own hosting, they have to use yours. That's how most companies do this sort of thing.
I recently obtained a domain and website through bluehost. They have Wordpress installed and I am unable to figure out how to bypass it so I can code old school. I would really rather learn Wordpress but don't know where to start.
So two questions:
1.
what wordpress files are blocking me from the site recognizing the usual Default page's code? (I create test html in Default which is bypassed somehow and will only show Wordpress default page in progress; my code is not overwritten; just ignored?)
2.
I'd be happy to learn myself, but don't know a good resource. Went to Wordpress site and they have free webpage I can play with. Should I just get the free one in order to learn whats what...or is that going to be dumbed down and different than having it installed in webhost site?
I am a fairly advanced programmer and feel that I should be able to pick this up rather quickly if I can only get past this first hurdle.
Thank you for any information or suggestions.
What loads by default at a domain (ex: www.yoursite.com) is controlled by the web server which uses a configurable list of filenames like index.html, index.php, Default.aspx etc. You can learn more about how that works here.
Normally, your web host will allow you to have some control over that list, and the precedence one file takes over another when the web server refers to the list. Perhaps you have an administrative interface or dashboard control which allows you to configure this for your site. If not, you'll have to contact support at your web host to have changes made to that list.
1) Nothing is blocking you from seeing a page on your web server at a specific address, only from allowing one page or another to be what loads by default at the root web address, as explained above. If you have FTP access to your website directory, and can upload a file there, you can still browse directly to it, even though the WordPress installation's default page is showing up at your root web address. Just enter the specific file name in your browser, and you will browse to that page, ex: www.mysite.com/somepageicreated.html
2) Learning is always good either way, but you either want to learn to make WordPress sites or you want to learn to make your own websites. I'll assume WordPress for now, since you mentioned a preference for that platform. Just remember though: working with WordPress sites is not making your own website, it is changing a WordPress template to be as close as possible to what you want your website to be. This may or may not suit your requirements.
Playing with a free example from WordPress can be very useful for picking up the basics. Once you've played there for awhile and feel a bit more aware of how things work, take what you've learned and apply it to shaping your own site into what you'd like. Just remember to always create a backup of anything you mess with, so you can always return to an earlier state if you really mess things up good :)
Good luck!
We have a unified portal which links multiple services through a jQuery tab based interface making use of iframes to display content from different services. Our portal runs on a secure server with HTTPS/SSL. While most of our external services are HTTPS, two of them aren't. Obviously we are aware of the issues with mixed content and we didn't like the idea of having non-https sites within the portal, but we didn't have a choice. Everything was ok until a few days ago when Google updated chrome to version 30, which now silently blocks mixed content.This has created a great number of problems for us. We contacted the external services and asked them if they could upgrade their services to HTTPS and one of them has come back saying they have no plans to do so for the next 2 years.
Obviously this is a problem. We tried getting around the problem by getting this service to open into a new browser window, but this is a rather inelegant workaround which I would like to get rid of, if at all possible. Is there any way that I can use AJAX or PHP to prefetch the page in question and then display it within the portal iframe without Chrome blocking it?
I would be very grateful for any advice at all. I do understand how bad an idea it is to mix secure content with non secure content, but I have no choice in the matter as my manager is adamant that the service have to be a part of the portal.
Thanks in advance.
Regards
Alex
A somewhat simple solution would be to use a reverse proxy. You can configure Apache quite easily to take an HTTPS connection, fetch the requested content from another URL and return it. See mod_proxy. The problem is that the browser will necessarily see a different URL/domain on its part (your reverse proxy), which may or may not cause problems with cookies or hardcoded links.
I'm currently building a simple web application in PHP that other company's can use as one of their services. I want to host the application myself and not install it on one of their servers, but i do want the accessibility that that would offer. Example:
www.mywebapp.com is where i would host the web application.
www.company.com would be the domain name of the client.
webapp.company.com should redirect to www.mywebapp.com/?c=company. Upon navigation, webapp.company.com/view.php?v=test would also be redirected to www.mywebapp.com/view.php?c=company&v=test and so on upon further using the web app.
Can someone explain how i can achieve this and if this is the best option considering my requirements?
I recommend that you switch to implementing an API. That's how this problem is solved by many corporations. They simply have an API key that will let your server know what client they are and therefore what to serve them.
Resources on API's:
Google Tech Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAb7hSCtvGw [1:00:19 long]
http://blog.programmableweb.com/2011/01/06/from-the-trenches-web-api-design-best-practices/
Directory of some existing API's: http://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory
I think your idea IS possible if both servers are set up correctly, but doesn't it feel wrong to you?
You would need to have an 'a' record for both domains pointing to the same server
http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess2.php?page=all#section-rewrite_sub-domains
I've got a newly set up dev server of a site I built. The dev server sits at a completely different Box and IP.
The dev site is a complete copy of the live site minus updates to paths and databases. The address is dev.mysite.com as opposed to just mysite.com.
The live site has a number of subdomains attached to it that change skins based on the subdomain, but nothing else is changed. When I try to log in to the dev site, it won't set the Session variable for the login. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
Before testing the live site you should test and ensure that the dev site works. In your question it sounds a bit the other way round. Anyway, I see two options here:
conflicting cookies
missing server configuration on the dev site
From your question it's hard to say which of those two applies (even not even something else). You should concentrate to get your dev site to work, ignoring your life site. That means, you access the dev site with a complete different browser from a complete different box (if possible) and from a complete different internet connection (if even possible). That should help you to isolate the problem and more easily find out what is going on. Then get sessions to work on the dev site. After it works, you can start to test your live site.
I got a solution for you
— Create a cookie and set it for domain and all subdomain (*)
So you need to insert sessions to database, I suggest you to use Zend Sessions.
Documentation : http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.session.savehandler.dbtable.html