[SOLVED] Changing my site's domain - need to set up an Apache virtual host for 301 redirects

Pyplate · 07-10-2013, 02:29 PM

I'm using a dynamic DNS service, and I want to switch from a free domain name to my own domain name. I'm not that experianced at working with Apache, so I'd appreciate it if I could get a sanity check. I'm currently using a single server connected to my home router. I'm running a Debian based Linux called Raspbian, and I'm using Apache2 with a home made CMS. My site is currently at http://myraspberrypi.no-ip.biz.

I plan to create two virtual host files in /etc/apaches/sites-available like this:

/etc/apache2/sites-available/mynewdomain.com

Code:

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

	DocumentRoot /var/www
	ServerName mynewdomain.com
	<Directory />
		Options FollowSymLinks
		AllowOverride All
	</Directory>
	<Directory /var/www/>
		Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
		AllowOverride All
		Order allow,deny
		allow from all
	</Directory>

	ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
	<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
		AllowOverride None
		Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                AddHandler cgi-script .py
		Order allow,deny
		Allow from all
	</Directory>

	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

	# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
	# alert, emerg.
	LogLevel warn

	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

/etc/apache2/sites-available/myolddomain.com

Code:

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

	DocumentRoot /var/www2
	ServerName myolddomain.com
	<Directory />
		Options FollowSymLinks
		AllowOverride All
	</Directory>
	<Directory /var/www2/>
		Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
		AllowOverride All
		Order allow,deny
		allow from all
	</Directory>

	ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin2/
	<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
		AllowOverride None
		Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                AddHandler cgi-script .py
		Order allow,deny
		Allow from all
	</Directory>

	#ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error2.log

	# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
	# alert, emerg.
	LogLevel warn

	#CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access2.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Then I'll execute these commands:

sudo a2ensite myolddomain.com
sudo a2ensite mynewdomain.com

In /var/www2, I'm going to duplicate the directory structure and fill it with htaccess files containing 301 redirects.

Before I try this, I want to make sure I know what I'm doing, so I'd appreciate it if someone could let me know if I'm on the right track. Is this approach likely to hurt my search rankings?

Pyplate · 07-10-2013, 09:28 PM

I've been reading about this some more, and it looks like I may not need to add a virtual host. I could just add a redirect in the .htaccess file. Is this the correct syntax to use?

Code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^olddomain.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://newdomain.com/$1 [R=301]

Pyplate · 07-11-2013, 05:58 PM

So I've added two lines to my .htaccess file under the comment about the 301 redirect:

Code:

# .htaccess
DirectoryIndex cgi-bin/pyindex.cgi
RewriteEngine on
# rewrite rules for 301 redirect
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^myraspberrypi.no-ip.biz/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://raspberrywebserver.com/$1 [R=301]
# rules for CMS
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !favicon.ico
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ cgi-bin/pyindex.cgi?q=$1 [L,QSA]

My site is visible at the new domain, but if I go to the old domain, I can still see my site, but and the old domain is displayed in the browser's url. So it looks as if the redirect isn't working. I tried adding escape characters to the lines I added like this:

Code:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^myraspberrypi\.no-ip\.biz/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http\:\/\/raspberrywebserver\.com/$1 [R=301]

Still no redirection. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Pyplate · 07-15-2013, 05:57 AM

I added a '*' to the end of the rewrite condition:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^myraspberrypi.no-ip.biz/*$

Now each page redirects to the equivalent page with the new domain name.