Subdomains and App Installations

Apologies if this is a super obvious question.

I’m interested in having one domain - something.org - that acts as a hub for a bunch of associated apps at subdomains. So, the main domain would be a website (probably just WP), while each of the subdomains would host a separate app. So, chat.something.org would have a mattermost install, notes.something.org would have an etherpad install, wiki.something.org would have a - you guessed it - wiki install (probably wiki.js), and video.something.org would have a jitsi instance.

I understand how to bind domains to environments (your documentation and tutorials are pretty straightforward and clear). However, how would I deal with the above situation - a variety of subdomains hung off the main one, each with their own app.

Is this a problematic approach (for resource management issues)? Is there a better, more obvious (less PITA) was of doing this?

Thanks.

Hi there! What you describe sounds like a common use for having multiple apps off one root domain. As long as each subdomain is bound to a singular application and there’s no overlap you should be okay.

In regards to resource usage/management, Tim wrote in a similar vein on this community post. I’ll quote him here in that he recommended it’s cleaner to set up separate environments for every project (in your case, every app) because you can more easily track resource usage for a project, you can share that environment with other users, or even transfer ownership to another user. Combining then into one massive stack is possible, but it all depends on how you want to structure your project.

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ok! So, basically one container for each app…then I bind the subdoamin in that particular container (as outlined here https://forums.reclaimhosting.com/t/changing-reclaim-cloud-domain-name/3234)

After taking a deeper look at that article, I do think it may be worth specifying here that binding domains is done at the environment level, not the container level(environments are the collection of containers that make up an app), so that is something to watch out for.

I understand. I tend to use “container” and “environment” interchangeably and indiscriminately. But my original statement above is accurate, I think…I create an environment for each application/subdomain, stand up the application, and then bind the subdomain (chat.something.org) to that environment.

In my experience if you are not using a CNAME to bind the domain you can just point your A record for the subdomain at the IP at it will work. I don’t think binding does anything if you are pointing A records, at least it seems to work regardless of binding for me.

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…which is all done on the registrar side of things.

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