Multiple Applications - Single domain

HI,

I know this isn't out of the box centminmod supported!

The scenario is a single website that has evolved the example.tld has a home index page and content, and a 'forums' application.

/ -> index.html
/about -> /about/index.html
/forums -> php forums app

To this, the owners want to redo the index with some new/updated static content and then add new dynamic functionality, via new external applications, so not / or /forums but say /app1 /app2.

Now clearly a subdomain would work here: app1.example.tld app2.example.tld #done.

But I got to thinking about that /forums and statics at /index.html. Currently, the index updates are done over sftp upload, as to, are the forum ones. In the new CI world, static generators can rsync or git hook & push etc to deploy. I'd be happier if the /index.html & assets and /forums were not in the same public/ folder.
So I'd like to see:
1. /home/nginx/domains/www.example.tld/public/index.html
2. /home/nginx/domains/www.example.tld/forums/index.php

Then use nginx to root /forums to the #2 folder. This can be done with the root/alias directive in a location block.

Before I run off waving, has anyone done similar and had issues?

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If going to a separate folder, I'm some of the way, but I'm not totally happy. I'd still prefer to have separate concerns, separated. So separate logs/backups/config/logins/perms. But forums.example.tld isn't going to work for 99% non-technical reasons.
My initial thinking got me to internally I could proxy the 'subdomain'. Add an external block to prevent 'leaks'.

This second way seems neater; barring the internal proxy, and slightly better for ensuring no accidental overwrites or deletes made during the upload of index files. ( I am pushing to automate it all )

Any thoughts or alternatives?

I was thinking about haproxy as it has a subdirectory -> backend way. But that's even further off the centminmod reservation.

Code:

acl has_forums_uri path_beg /forums
use_backend forum_servers if has_forums_uri
default_backend home_servers

 

I totally concur the subdomain route is preferable. There is going to be a mix of technology and platforms. No budget to pay for server mgmt for lots of nodes, so PAAS it is.

The challenge is two fold, one I want to do away with FTP and an initial remote folder isn't enough of a defence. Then automation wants nice clean spaces. The only non-automated bit will be the forums app.

Middleman can deploy via Rsync, it can keep the old assets ( not a bad idea technically ) but if it gets to delete, then bye bye sub-folder forums. #cry. Deploy via git pushes equally will blow away the non-repository subfolders without some post deploy dancing. Possible, not pretty, but possible.

So I think I'll have to pursue separated internal sites. I think, on paper at least, the only non-standard is internally proxying to ip/port.

So www.example.tld is the original site, set up as per normal, can run letsencrypt etc. Within that is a location block for /forums. This will proxy off to forums.internal.example.tld or #.#.#.#:#### which is running as a separate vhost setup.
I'll have a play, on paper it should be ok... hah.