Apache and different document roots based on url

Is it possible to have multiple document roots for the same domain name but with a different language flag?

Example:

• and e.g. , etc. goes to /www/site_new.

• and , etc. goes to /www/site_old.

Someone mentioned symlinks, but I can't figure out how to achieve this using the above scenario.

1 Answer

Is it possible to have multiple DocumentRoot directives for the same domain name but with a different language flag?

As far as I am aware, the strict answer to this is "no" (that is, you can't have multiple DocumentRoot directives for a given domain name). However, you can create subdomains as virtual hosts and give them their own DocumentRoot:

<VirtualHost *:80> ServerName example.com ServerAlias en.example.com DocumentRoot "/www/site_new" </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName de.example.com #ServerAlias DocumentRoot "/www/site_old" </VirtualHost> 

Mapping URLs To Folders With Alias

Using the Apache Alias directive could provide a solution to your example:

Alias "/en" "/www/site_new" Alias "/en/about-us" "/www/site_new" Alias "/de" "/www/site_old" Alias "/de/uber-uns" "/www/site_old" 

In this instance:

• and would map to /www/site_new

• and would map to /www/site_old.

Someone mentioned symlinks, but I can't figure out how to achieve this with the scenario outlined above.

You can use symlinks as the targets for Alias ¹.

Otherwise, using only symlinks, I think you would run into confusion with subfolders. For example (if I am not mistaken):

• In your DocumentRoot, /en would need to be a symlink to /www/site_new.

• In /www/site_new, /about-us would also need to be a symlink to /www/site_new.

¹ With Apache on Windows, this can overcome permissions issues with folders located outside the DocumentRoot given in httpd.conf.