Very Computer

I'm listening on an IP number that has a number of aliases:

www.domain.com
alias.domain.com
www.other.com

all point to the same address.

Now, I want alias.domain.com to 301 redirect to www.domain.com.  We are
phasing out that name, and it's always been an alias to www.domain.com.

Note the rewrite below.

# Name-based virtual hosting

NameVirtualHost 123.456.678.123:80

<VirtualHost 123.456.678.123:80>
    ServerName www.domain.com

    Rewri*gine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} alias.domain.com
    RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.veryComputer.com/$1 [L,R=301]

    [...]

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 123.456.678.123:80>
    ServerName www.other.com
    [...]
</VirtualHost>

The reason this works is because someone with a HTTP_HOST of
alias.domain.com doesn't match either of my virtual hosts, so Apache
uses the first one.  Sound correct?

My questions:
1) would it be better to add a separate virtual host section for that
name?  If so, why?

<VirtualHost 123.456.678.123:80>
    ServerName alias.domain.com
    RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.veryComputer.com/$1 [L,R=301]
</VirtualHost>

2) Will placing the rewrite outside of all virtual hosts simply not
work? (Because Apache is processing the Virtual host before any
rewrites?)

Thanks,

--

pls note the one line sig, not counting this one.

Rather than use mod_rewrite, why not use the Redirect directive?  Rather
than this:

Quote:><VirtualHost 123.456.678.123:80>
>    ServerName www.domain.com

>    Rewri*gine on
>    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} alias.domain.com
>    RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.veryComputer.com/$1 [L,R=301]

>    [...]

></VirtualHost>

Try this:

<VirtualHost 123.45.67.89:80>
  ServerName alias.domain.com
  Redirect / http://www.veryComputer.com/
</VirtualHost>

It's more simple and to the point that fiddling with mod_rewrite, and it
was designed for exactly the application you have in mind.

Mark

remarked...

Quote:> Try this:

> <VirtualHost 123.45.67.89:80>
>   ServerName alias.domain.com
>   Redirect / http://www.domain.com/
> </VirtualHost>

> It's more simple and to the point that fiddling with mod_rewrite, and it
> was designed for exactly the application you have in mind.

Oh, thanks.  I was thinking Redirect only matched explicit URL paths.  
Thanks for the reminder.

--

pls note the one line sig, not counting this one.