# Aliasing customer.mysite.com to customer.com possible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [December 13, 2007, 10:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/aliasing-customer-mysite-com-to-customer-com-possible/123000 "2007-12-13T10:24:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/f14d63/32.png) [@adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adistarmid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 10:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/aliasing-customer-mysite-com-to-customer-com-possible/123000/1 "2007-12-13T10:24:59Z")
I’m using DHH’s Account Location plugin to create the subdomains for the users. If a user wants a unique domain name for their account (e.g. [customer.com](http://customer.com)), instead of the default [customer.mysite.com](http://customer.mysite.com), is that possible? Any ideas or resources on where to start? ---
**Author:** ![adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/f14d63/32.png) [@adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adistarmid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 10:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/aliasing-customer-mysite-com-to-customer-com-possible/123000/2 "2007-12-13T10:40:57Z")
On Dec 13, 2007, at 1:24 AM, Bob S. wrote: > I’m using DHH’s Account Location plugin to create the subdomains > for the > users. If a user wants a unique domain name for their account (e.g. > [customer.com](http://customer.com)), instead of the default [customer.mysite.com](http://customer.mysite.com), is that > possible? Someone (presumably your customer) would have to buy that domain name, and someone would have to host the DNS records for it to point that domain name to your server’s IP address. Your HTTP server’s virtual host config would then have to allow for aliasing of the customer’s domain to your application. It is doable. I would ony know how to do it manually (for Apache), and the HTTP server would have to be bounced each time you added an alias. It’s not something I would want to offer as a feature for everyone in a shared application as I don’t see an easy way to automate it, but someone out there may have dealt with it. Sounds like you’re set on the sub-domains, but in case anyone else was wondering, here’s more info on subdomain how-to http:// www.railsdev.ws/blog/10/using-subdomains-in-rails-apps/ – def gw acts\_as\_n00b writes\_at(www.railsdev.ws) end ---
**Author:** ![adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/f14d63/32.png) [@adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adistarmid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 10:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/aliasing-customer-mysite-com-to-customer-com-possible/123000/3 "2007-12-13T10:45:32Z")
Thanks for the great info, Greg! I had a hunch that automating it wouldn’t be possible. I know Ning offers domain aliasing for their users, and I’m assuming they manually do it for each customer (or have the customer do it). I just located Shopify’s domain aliasing process for GoDaddy users ([http://wiki.shopify.com/Godaddy](http://wiki.shopify.com/Godaddy)). Pretty tedious! ---
**Author:** ![adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/f14d63/32.png) [@adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adistarmid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 10:52am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/aliasing-customer-mysite-com-to-customer-com-possible/123000/4 "2007-12-13T10:52:41Z")
On 13 Dec 2007, at 10:40, Greg W. wrote: > customer’s domain to your application. > > It is doable. I would ony know how to do it manually (for Apache), > and the HTTP server would have to be bounced each time you added an > alias. It’s not something I would want to offer as a feature for > everyone in a shared application as I don’t see an easy way to > automate it, but someone out there may have dealt with it. Greg is right here, there’s some manual configuration work involved such as pointing the dns records and adding a ServerAlias directive to Apache (the reload the apache configs). After that, u can use the “account\_domain” helper of the account location plugin to check against that domain: account\_domain==“[maindomain.com](http://maindomain.com)” ? Account.find\_by\_subdomain : Account.find\_by\_domain Best regards Peter De Berdt ---
**Author:** ![adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/f14d63/32.png) [@adistarmid](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adistarmid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 11:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/aliasing-customer-mysite-com-to-customer-com-possible/123000/5 "2007-12-13T11:05:43Z")
Peter De Berdt wrote: > On 13 Dec 2007, at 10:40, Greg W. wrote: > > > customer’s domain to your application. > > > > It is doable. I would ony know how to do it manually (for Apache), > > and the HTTP server would have to be bounced each time you added an > > alias. It’s not something I would want to offer as a feature for > > everyone in a shared application as I don’t see an easy way to > > automate it, but someone out there may have dealt with it. > > Greg is right here, there’s some manual configuration work involved > such as pointing the dns records and adding a ServerAlias directive > to Apache (the reload the apache configs). After that, u can use the > “account\_domain” helper of the account location plugin to check > against that domain: > > account\_domain==“[maindomain.com](http://maindomain.com)” ? Account.find\_by\_subdomain : > Account.find\_by\_domain > > Best regards > > Peter De Berdt Great stuff, Peter. Thanks for the dns and apache tips – and, especially that last one involving the account location plugin that’s going to save me a lot of time figuring all of this out. Thanks a bunch!