I need the ability to create subdomains.

ex. dog.mydomain.com

With previous providers this was easy with cpannel, now thats another story without a control panel.

Does anyone know of a quick/easy way to create subdomains?

Ive installed Webmin in hopes it had the ability to create subdomains but have not had any luck with it.

I am very new to unmanaged servers, so everything is a long process for me.

Just DNS wise? Or in your webserver? Do you use Apache? Nginx? Which OS?

Hey Guys,

If I could be so rude to hijack this post as after the same information.

I'm on NGINX with Ubuntu 12.04, PHP 5.3, DNS instructions would be good for me (assuming it's via the Linode DNS manager?).

Thanks in advance,

Paul

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My Website: http://www.paulthomson.me

livefree:

You need to install the virtualmin module to webmin to be able to create subdomains easily.

DNS Wise it's simply creating a new A Record, set the subdomain you want as name (if you want sub.domain.tld, use sub as value) and the IP to your Linode's IP. You can add 2, one with IPv4 IP, other with IPv6, if you set up your nginx to allow IPv6 traffic.

Nginx wise, assuming you use apt-packages,
1. copy current config, e.g.: cp /etc/nginx/sites-available/0-default /etc/nginx/sites-available/1-sub.domain.tld
2. Edit 1-sub.domain.tld, change values:
- server_name sub.domain.tld;
- access_log
- error_log
- root
^ use own values for logs/root

Do you use PHP-FPM? That might require some extra settings for the PHP Pool.

im using apache with debian

The450man: DNS wise it's the same as I said to livefree,

I use nginx, but with apache it should be about the same:
1. copy the current config, e.g. /etc/apache2/sites-available/0-default to /etc/apache2/sites-available/1-sub.domain.tld

I believe the following matters with Apache2 for stuff you need to change:

<VirtualHost sub.domain.tld>
ServerName sub.domain.tld
ServerAdmin admin@sub.domain.tld
DocumentRoot /folder/to/public/html
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/sub.domain.tld-error.log
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/sub.domain.tld-access common


</VirtualHost>

Thanks Nuvini!

I have Three files: default, default-ssl and mydomain.tld (has the MS-DOS application extension). I believe the MS-dos application extension was from using putty?

The other two files appeared as if they are using a wildcard *, the ms-dos one seemed to have the proper format so I copied it and edited the mydomain.tld with subdomain.mydomain.tld

As far as setting the DNS goes, do we do this within the linode manager itself? If so, how is this done? Creating a new domain zone? Master or slave?

I'm not sure what you mean with the MS-DOS Extension.

After editing, I believe Apache has a built in command to enable the site: a2ensite <subdomain.mydomain.tld>
If that doesn't work, just do ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/sub.domain.tld /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/sub-domain.tld

DNS wise, I don't know your domain name, but you have to set it where your nameservers are located. Linode doesn't handle domain registrations, so by default you'll have to add the A-records where you registered your domain.
If you want to use the Linode DNS manager for this you have to point your domain's nameservers to ns1.linode.com to ns5.linode.com. If you can't fill in 5 nameservers, check here which ones are the best geographically and use those: https://www.linode.com/wiki/index.php/Linode_DNS (e.g. If you're in Europe, make sure to at least include ns5.linode.com)

Im using linodes domain manager and have my domains nameservers pointend to the linode nameservers.

After editing, it appears the sub domain now works but it displays the content of the main domain.

What does 'apache2ctl -S' report?

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/* TODO: need to add signature to posts */

He has a file named "mydomain.com" in the sites directory, and is using Windows, which interprets .com as the old DOS-style executable.

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rsk, providing useless advice on the Internet since 2005.

When i ran "apache2ctl -S" i got:

apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 74.207.xxx.xxx for ServerName
VirtualHost configuration:
wildcard NameVirtualHosts and _default_ servers:
*:80 is a NameVirtualHost


default server www.mydomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mydomain.com:4)
port 80 namevhost www.mydomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mydomain.com:4)
port 80 namevhost www.mydomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/sub-mydomain.com:4)
port 80 namevhost www.mydomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/sub-mydomain.com:21)

It looks like you need to change ServerName for both of the <VirtualHost> stanzas in sub-mydomain.com.

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/* TODO: need to add signature to posts */

I did some editing and ran apache2ctl -S again:

VirtualHost configuration:
wildcard NameVirtualHosts and _default_ servers:
*:80 is a NameVirtualHost
default server http://www.mydomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mydomain.com:4)
port 80 namevhost http://www.mydomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mydomain.com:4)
port 80 namevhost sub.mydomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/sub-(the domain name here is wrong. My domain has three characters sperated by a -, it is missing the first 4 characters).com:4)
Syntax OK

I need to edit the "sites-enabled" folder files, but I believe these are system links and not actual files. How can I edit these?

My sub domain is still redirecting to my main domain.