CUNY Academic Commons

André, I'll be using a WordPress plugin that maps external domain names to specific sites in our WP installation. Most of the work is done by the WP plugin, but I wanted to check with you about our Apache configuration - by default, will domains whose DNS points toward the Commons's IP automatically resolve to the Commons's WP installation webroot? Or will it be necessary to define a VirtualHost for each domain?

Thanks!

If virtual hosts are used, which in this case they are, Apache will respond to a request for an arbitrary domain with the first vhost defined. But having said that, I'd say that we should explicitly define all existing/valid sub-domains as ServerAlias of commons.gc.cuny.edu.

we should explicitly define all existing/valid sub-domains as ServerAlias of commons.gc.cuny.edu

Arbitrary subdomains are already handled correctly - that's how we're able to have new blogs.

If virtual hosts are used, which in this case they are, Apache will respond to a request for an arbitrary domain with the first vhost defined

Then as long as commons.gc.cuny.edu is the first defined vhost, we should be ok, right? (Do we even have any more vhosts defined on that box?)

Arbitrary subdomains are already handled correctly - that's how we're able to have new blogs.

That's true, but that's why I said "arbitrary domain" instead :-)

Then as long as commons.gc.cuny.edu is the first defined vhost, we should be ok, right?

It would work, but it's not a good practice. It's better to explicitly declare all expected domain and sub-domains.

(Do we even have any more vhosts defined on that box?)

cuny.is

It's better to explicitly declare all expected domain and sub-domains.

Cool :) Can I place a request for the following new vhosts, directed to the Commons webroot?
zeteojournal.com
zetjo.com

Added both now and reloaded the server configuration.

We can now simply set these addresses as CNAME of commons.gc.cuny.edu with their name service provider.

Thanks a million, André! I gave instructions to the domain owner, who is taking care of the DNS himself with his registrar.