Dirty Shell Scripts Part 1 Virtual Hosting

If you run any type of Web hosting service like me, you know what a pain in the ass it can be to have to add new virtual hosts to your Web server. If you have Linux and Apache, here's a quick'n'dirty little script that will save you a ton of time:

if [ -t 0 ] # Make sure stdio is a terminal
then
        echo "Enter the new hostname:";
        read arg1
        /usr/sbin/useradd -s /bin/false $arg1;
        echo "User added...";
        sed -e "s/name.com/$arg1/g" virthost.conf >> httpd.conf;
        /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl restart;
        echo "$arg1 was added and Apache restarted. You're so sexy!";
        chmod 755 /home/$arg1;
else
        echo "Houston, we had a problem!"
fi

Step by step:

• Basically, the script takes input from the terminal, and makes whatever you typed in the variable 'arg1'.
• Next, we create a user account for the new domain.
• The line that does most of the work, 'sed -e ...' is next. We're simply doing a searching for name.com and replacing it with the name of our new domain. It does the search and replace on a file named virthost.conf, which simply contains the Apache <VirtualHost> directive. Here's what my virthost.conf looks like:
  

  <VirtualHost 10.10.10.10>
  ServerName www.name.com
  DocumentRoot /home/name.com/public_html
  CustomLog /home/name.com/web.log combined
  CustomLog /home/name.com/main.referer.log referer
  </VirtualHost>
  

  Naturally, you'll replace the IP address 10.10.10.10 with the IP address of your webserver.

  This step finishes up by appending what it replaced in virthost.conf to your httpd.conf(Apache config) file - while leaving the virthost.conf file intact.
• The script finishes up by restarting Apache, chmod'ing the users directory and letting you know how of your sexual prowess.
• To get everything to run, copy and paste the virthost.conf file above and save it in $your_apache_home/conf - same with the script itself, cut and paste it into $your_apache_home/conf and save it as newhost.sh(Don't forget to set it executable!). Everything should work pretty smurfy. If not, post a question below and I'll try to help ya out :)

Now, this script is extremelly lacking in the error and exception checking department, so use at your own risk. Like I said, its quick'n'dirty :) However, if you are adding a couple virtual host's a day to your httpd.conf file, you'll soon be wonder where you would be without a script to do the grunt work for you..

Next time we'll throw together a script that will make updating your DNS servers a snap. If you have any other ideas for shell scripts that would make your life easier, and like to see them here, email me or put your suggestion below!