Site Factory

Using path-based domain names

As described in Adding custom domains to your site, you can add a custom domain name to an Site Factory website, such as www.example.com or store.example.com. Site Factory also supports using path-based custom domains for websites if you add custom code to your application. Path-based domains are custom domains in the form www.example.com/foo and www.example.com/bar. They enable more choice in custom domain names, and allow a single SSL certificate to handle many websites under the same URL.

Important considerations and requirements

To use path-based custom domains, you must keep in mind the following considerations and path-related issues:

  • Each website must use the Site Factory Connector module 8.x-1.53, 7.x-1.53, or later.
  • Path-based domains can display incorrectly during code deployments.
  • All websites using the same URL must exist on the same Site Factory stack. For example, if you have a website on one stack with the domain www.example.com, you can’t have a website on a different stack with the domain www.example.com/full.
  • The path for a website can’t contain more than one subdirectory. For example, you can have a website at www.example.com/gibbous, but not at www.example.com/phases/gibbous.
  • For each website using a path-based custom domain, you must create a symbolic link (symlink) in the docroot directory. For more information, see Creating symbolic links for path-based custom domains.

If your website has custom db-update hooks, you must add Drush version 9.6 or later to your codebase, or ensure all domains passed to Drush commands contain a trailing slash.

For known issues about path-based domains, see Known issues with path-based domains.

Adding a path-based custom domain

You can add a path-based custom domain (such as www.example.com/gibbous) in the Site Factory Management Console in the same way you add any custom domain. For more information, see Adding your domain.

Resolving domain name conflicts

If you try to assign a domain name already in use for another website, you will see an error message like the following example:

Oops! Looks like there was a problem

A domain can belong only to a single server group. This domain is already
assigned to the ``xyz654`` server group via the ``example`` site. This site
is served via the ``abc123`` server group.

To resolve the error, either choose a different domain name, or remove the conflicting domain name from the other website. It may take several minutes after removing a conflicting domain name before it becomes available for re-use.

DNS error message

After you add a path-based domain to a website, the Site Factory Management Console displays a message like the following example:

Your domain name has been successfully added to the site. The domain
example.com/gibbous does not have a DNS record that points to this
site. Confirm the domain and contact your DNS provider to add a CNAME or
address record (A record) to point to example.gibbous.sfdev.acquia.com.

If you have already pointed your DNS records to your Site Factory website, you can ignore this message. A known issue in Site Factory prevents this Site Factory Management Console page from performing DNS lookups for path-based domains.

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