A web application that lets users choose a domain name for the website they are about to create?

Question

I want to create a web application that allows users to sign up, register a domain name and create their own website. This will be done in Ubuntu 9.10, Apache 2, Mysql 5 and Php 5.

At the moment, the only area of development I'm uncertain about is the domain name registration and mapping it to the web application.

I'm going to postpone developing the web interface that lets users register domains because I don't have the slightest idea how to do it. For the time being, I'll let an employee register the domain name on the user's behalf. I'll automate the process in te future (any advice on this matter would be appreciated). The employee will also input the registered domain name into my CMS, which will also update the Apache VirtualHost files with new domain information. I will have a cron job reload Apache every 5 minutes to capture the virtualhost changes.

Does this sound like the right approach? Will what I'm about to do be very disruptive to the server? Can anyone offer suggestions or point out issues I need to be aware of?

Additional details

the documentroot will remain the same at /var/www/public_html/websitemaker/ for all domains. I'll track user settings and styles based on the PHP's $_SERVER variable

Answer 1

I don't believe restarting apache every 5 minutes is the way to go as it won't be good for scaling.

One option would be to use logic grab the the domain name used to access the site. Verify that against your list of accounts in MySQL. If there is a match then load the users site and if not then behave like normal or send to error page.

As for registering domain names you will need to create (or use and existing) a script implenting an API to the registrar of your choice. They will provide the ability to check if a domain is available or not and to register it assigning it specific DNS values (plus other options as well) all in real time.

Answer 2

I think what you're looking for is Apache with mass virtual hosting so that you don't have to restart/reload Apache every 5 mins. Any specific questions about this would be more appropriate for Serverfault.