Re: [PATCH] more mass virtual hosting support

[Dean Gaudet <dg...@arctic.org>]

+1 for inclusion in 1.3.7. 

Dean

p.s. thanks Tony, glad to see you finally cut through the red tape so you
could release this :) 

On Thu, 20 May 1999, Tony Finch wrote:

> I have finlly got permission to release some modifications that I
> developed for Demon Internet to provide better support for mass
> dynamic virtual hosting, especially IP-based virtual hosts. It is in
> two parts: (1) a new module, mod_vhost_alias, and (2) a patch to the
> existing code. We are using this on web servers that have thousands of
> IP-based virtual hosts.
> 
> The first two attachments to this message are the source code and
> documentation for mod_vhost_alias. This module provides simplified and
> streamlined support for dynamic mass virtual hosting as compared to
> using mod_rewrite. In addition it allows you to vary the DocumentRoot
> or a standard ScriptAlias based on the IP address of the server, which
> isn't possible with mod_rewrite (but see below).
> 
> The third attachment is a patch which does a number of things:
> 
> (1) Add a local_ip and local_host fields to conn_rec, analogous to the
> remote_ip and remote_host fields. The first of these is used by
> mod_vhost_alias and the modified mod_log_config; the second is
> required for UseCanonicalName DNS.
> 
> (2) (The bulk of the change.) Add a third option to UseCanonicalName,
> "DNS". The reson for this is to support ancient browsers that do not
> provide a Host: header when we are doing IP-based dynamic virtual
> hosting and need to create a self-referential URL, etc. This could
> probably be generalised to using DB files etc.
> 
> (3) Change mod_log_config to add %A for logging the server address.
> The motivation for this is to reduce the number of reverse DNS lookups
> required when using UseCanonicalName DNS compared to logging %V.
> 
> The fourth attachment is a trivial patch that adds a SERVER_ADDR
> environment variable for CGIs and mod_rewrite, partly because it's
> easy and adds consistency, and partly because it allows mod_rewrite to
> catch up with mod_vhost_alias's functionality :-) We don't use it at
> Demon because it isn't standard and we don't need it.
> 
> Tony.
> -- 
> f.a.n.finch   dot@dotat.at   fanf@demon.net   black dog
> 
>