# Multiple vhosts with wildcards?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multiple-vhosts-with-wildcards/129645>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [February 20, 2008, 11:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multiple-vhosts-with-wildcards/129645 "2008-02-20T11:00:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Phillip\_B\_Oldham](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Phillip\_B\_Oldham](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Phillip_B_Oldham)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2008, 11:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multiple-vhosts-with-wildcards/129645/1 "2008-02-20T11:00:00Z")

</div>

Hi

At the moment we’re using lighttpd, but its proving to be a little flaky  
with php-fcgi. I’d like to know whether its possible to get the  
following set-up working so I can replace lighttpd with nginx.

We use a _lot_ of wildcard domains. The subdomains correspond to a  
client, and they have their own areas:

review._.ourdomain.com  
mail._.ourdomain.com  
dev.\*.ourdomain.com  
\*.ourdomain.com

This is pretty trivial to set up in lighttpd:

$HTTP[“host”] =~ “^review.(._).ourdomain.com" {}  
$HTTP[“host”] =~ "^mail.(._).ourdomain.com” {}  
$HTTP[“host”] =~ “^dev.(._).ourdomain.com" {}  
$HTTP[“host”] =~ "^(._).ourdomain.com” {}

Trying to set up something similar in nginx raises problems. This is my  
setup:

server {  
server\_name [review.it.ourdomain.com](http://review.it.ourdomain.com) review.\*.ourdomain.com;  
…  
}

server {  
server\_name [dev.it.ourdomain.com](http://dev.it.ourdomain.com) dev.\*.ourdomain.com;  
…  
}

but this just throws the following error:

[emerg] 3320#0: invalid server name or wildcard “dev.\*.ourdomain.com”

## Any idea how I can achieve the result I’m looking for?

_Phillip B Oldham_  
The Activity People  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

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---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Phillip\_B\_Oldham](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Phillip\_B\_Oldham](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Phillip_B_Oldham)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2008, 1:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multiple-vhosts-with-wildcards/129645/2 "2008-02-20T13:39:50Z")

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On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 09:46:23AM +0000, Phillip B Oldham wrote:

> \*.ourdomain.com
> 
> but this just throws the following error:
> 
> [emerg] 3320#0: invalid server name or wildcard “dev.\*.ourdomain.com”
> 
> ## Any idea how I can achieve the result I’m looking for?

Use regex (note “~”):

server {  
server\_name [review.it.ourdomain.com](http://review.it.ourdomain.com) ~^review..+.ourdomain.com$;  
…  
}

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Phillip\_B\_Oldham](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Phillip\_B\_Oldham](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Phillip_B_Oldham)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2008, 2:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multiple-vhosts-with-wildcards/129645/3 "2008-02-20T14:49:47Z")

</div>

> Use regex (note “~”):
> 
> server {  
> server\_name [review.it.ourdomain.com](http://review.it.ourdomain.com) ~^review..+.ourdomain.com$;  
> …  
> }

Cool, never knew that server\_name supported regex. Didn’t see that in  
the English wiki, just cross referencd it in the Russian docs

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Phillip\_B\_Oldham](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Phillip\_B\_Oldham](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Phillip_B_Oldham)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2008, 2:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multiple-vhosts-with-wildcards/129645/4 "2008-02-20T14:52:09Z")

</div>

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 09:39:11PM +0800, Yusuf Goolamabbas wrote:

> > Use regex (note “~”):
> > 
> > server {  
> > server\_name [review.it.ourdomain.com](http://review.it.ourdomain.com) ~^review..+.ourdomain.com$;  
> > …  
> > }
> 
> Cool, never knew that server\_name supported regex. Didn’t see that in  
> the English wiki, just cross referencd it in the Russian docs

It had appeared in 0.6.7 and 0.5.33.