How to create subdomains with PHP code??

Anon

Hi everybody,
Can anyone tell me how to create a subdomain on the server on the fly with PHP code. I doubt it's possible or not. But in the past I've been allways wrong when doubting capablities of PHP. So if u have a solution or suggestion please respond. Your help is really really appreciated.
Regards
Ashzepp

Anon

Well first off you server needs to know to respond to *.mydomain.com so that it can handle whatever anyone types in. Second you need to have all of your php scripts read the domain and configure themselves properly for the subdomain. It's very easy, just read and parse the $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"] variable then take the appropriate actions.

<?php
list ($subdomain) = explode(".", $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"]);

// do something based on the $subdomain
?>

Anon

Hi Rob,
Thanks alot for helping me. Well as u are suggesting it's easy, i hope its really easy. How u' ve explained it with minimal of words, make me confident enough to do it. Once again thanks alot.
Regards
Ashish

Anon

Hi,
I called up the server people, they told that they don't give support for WILDCARD DNS. So do I've any turnaround, or my story ends with it. Please help.
Regards
Ashish

Anon

You could use url cloaking in the DNS records to point *.mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com, but then I think that the server would actually see www.mydomain.com. not sure though

www.enom.com offers free dns records with url forwarding and url cloaking (along with other things like email forwarding) with every domain name registered with (or transferred to) them.

or for free dns control with a registered domain with someone else, use hn.org (don't think they do url cloaking though)

Anyone know how the server reads cloaked urls? I reckon it works by cloaking the url from the client, and not the server...

Anon

It all has to do with wilcards. You can add an A record for * that points to an address.

ex.

IN A 10.10.100.1

Make sure this is THE VERY LAST A record, otherwise you might break resolution for some records. This wildcard will match any third level domain that is not found previously in the zone.

Then server side, within you conf, add a server alias of

.2ndleveldomain.

This way apache matches all host header names.

You can then call a routine that does whatever dependent on the value of $HTTP_HOST.

If you have a host who will not add wildcards to you DNS records or to you virtualhost tags then I suggest you find a new host.

Anon

Can anyone tell me if there are servers that run php for free???
plzzzz