Main blog page shows all blogs regardless of URL

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Main blog page shows all blogs regardless of URL

I created two URL's because I wanted to host two blogs: one for kids and one for their parents. Ideally, I'd prefer the kids to not even know the parents blog exists, so I created two separate URL's for the blogs, one at kids.mydomain.com and the other at parents.mydomain.com. Going to either URL, though, both blogs are listed mysteriously. If you go to the one that doesn't belong to that URL, you get a 404 not found error.

The ideal situation would be for the kids blog to appear only at the kids' URL and the parents blog to appear only at the parents' URL, yet both appear at both URL's. Can filtering out the wrong blog be done so that it doesn't show up?

white Intel iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 1, 2008 7:18 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 2, 2008 10:06 AM in response to tobybrut

There are a few steps you need to go through to make this all work. There also may be a better solution.

1) DNS: You need to have 10.5 Server running DNS.
a) Under the Zones Tab: You must have a ZONE setup for your domain name... this must be fully qualified (ie. mydomain.com. - the trailing period is important).
b) You must have MACHINE records setup for both of your intended subdomains (ie. kids, parents). You'll want the IP address associated with each of these to match the public IP address that your domain host is pointing at.
c) Don't forget to SAVE (Restarting the service wouldn't hurt either).

2) Web: In the Sites pane you need two entries (one for each subdomain... a third if you would like to use the www.mydomain.com).
a) Under the "General" Tab: Each entry should be set to port 80 with IP Address set to "any". You can specify unique Web Folders at this stage, though you shouldn't have to if you're using the default Wiki/Blog service.
b) Under the Aliases Tab: Be sure that none of the Sites entries include "*" as an Web Server Alias. This will cause all traffic to be directed at that entry. Add the full subdomain address under Web Server Alias for each entry (ie. kids.mydomain.com).
c) Under the Aliases Tab: Add a rule to the URL Aliases and Redirects. Type: RedirectMatch Pattern: ^/$ Path: /groups/kids/ (or whatever the path to the kid's group is). Now any request for kids.mydomain.com/ will be rewritten kids.mydomain.com/groups/kids/ The RedirectMatch rule wouldn't be necessary if you later decide to abandon Apple's Wiki/Blog - you can simply change the Web Folder setting to point to whatever files you'd like to serve.
d) Be sure to click SAVE (Again, restarting the service wouldn't hurt either).

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Answer 2

tobybrut Author

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Jun 2, 2008 7:28 PM in response to radiomurf

Thank you! That solved the problem quite nicely. It redirected correctly to the correct blog pages.

Message was edited by: tobybrut

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Answer 3

tobybrut Author

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Jun 7, 2008 4:07 PM in response to radiomurf

The solution provided works, but I'd like to extend it a bit further.

I've got two subdomains set up at https://kids.mydomain.com and https://parents.mydomain.com.

When I go to https://parents.mydomain.com/groups/, it lists both blogs: ParentsBlog and KidsBlog. If I click on the KidsBlog, obviously I get a 404 error since the domain has to be kids.mydomain.com for it to work. But I'd like that link to redirect to https://kids.mydomain.com/groups/kidsblog/blog/ to get to the real kids' blog.

I tried the Redirect command with the pattern /kidsblog and a bunch of variations of that, but none of them would work. It just continues to get the typical 404 error with the URL showing as https://parents.mydomain.com/groups/kidsblog/, so clearly the redirect didn't work. Can the redirect co-exist with the RedirectMatch mentioned above? Or am I just not understanding how the Redirect command works?

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