Installing MySQL

First, we need to download MySQL. The MySQL download site, available under http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/, links to mirrors that have packages for almost all systems. To pick the optimal package source, here are my recommendations:

The options file fo Windows installations should include the following lines (given that you have installed MySQL in C:\mysql):

[mysqld]
basedir=C:/mysql # note the / instead of \
datadir=C:/mysql/data

The installers usually set up their own options file.

Bringing MySQL and mod_mysqlvhost Together

mod_mysqlvhost is as flexible as possible you can create your database the way you want it. The only thing that is really needed is a table with at least two columns, one of which contains the domain name and the other the path. Both are usually stored as VARCHARs. A possible database setup SQL script might be:

GRANT SELECT ON domains.* TO lighttpd@localhost
IDENTIFIED BY '********';
CREATE DATABASE domains;
USE domains;
CREATE TABLE domains (
domain VARCHAR(64) not null primary key,
document_root VARCHAR(256) not null);

The corresponding Lighttpd configuration is:

mysql-vhost.db = "domains"
mysql-vhost.user = "lighttpd"
mysql-vhost.password = "********"
mysql-vhost.sock = "/var/sock/mysql.lighttpd.sock"
mysql-vhost.sql = "SELECT document_root from domains WHERE domain=?"

Of course, we should take a password not only consisting of asterisks. Adding, moving, and deleting domains can now be done with the following SQL:

# Add a domain
INSERT INTO domains
VALUES ('subdomain.ourdomain.net', '/var/www/sub1');
# Move a domain to another directory
UPDATE domains SET document_root = '/var/www/subdomain'
WHERE domain = 'subdomain.ourdomain.net';
# Delete a domain
DELETE FROM domains WHERE domain='subdomain.ourdomain.net';
# Change a domain name by deleting the old and adding a new entry.

Now we have everything in place to be completely free with our domain to document root mapping.