JOB POST: set up routes for one web2py instance, several top level domains, and two apps per domain

[Lisandro]

Originally this was a question, but considering is something I need for my business, I added "JOB POST" to the title. 

If you consider that you know how to achieve what I need, I'm willing to pay for the work. 

Sorry if this is not the place to ask for a web2py developer (in that case, the post is still a question to the group).

To help you understand, first let me tell what I have right now:

• I have one web2py instance running. 
• I developed two web2py apps that, together, they allow you to have your website (like a blog) and manage it yourself:
• the first app is the public website, and right now it is accessible through the top level domain: mywebsite.com
• one of the apps is the control panel, where you can post/edit new articles, etc, and it is accessible through a subdomain: panel.mywebsite.com
• I have several websites running, each one with its top level domain.

I got all this working using parameter-based routing:

routers = dict(
    BASE=dict(
        default_controller='default',
        default_function='index',
        domains={
            # one website
            'recipes.com': 'recipes',
            'panel.recipes.com': 'recipes_panel',
            # another website
            'traveler.com': 'traveler',
            'panel.traveler.com': 'traveler_panel',
            # ... several more websites ...
        },
        root_static=['robots.txt'],
        map_static=True,
        exclusive_domain=True,
    )
)

Note that with exclusive_domain=True, each app is accessible only through one specific domain, and it's not possible to access it from another domain.

However, consider this: what if I want to setup SSL for a website? 

I would have to buy a wildcard SSL certificate, because I have the website divided in two parts, one of them (the control panel) in a subdomain. 

Wildcard SSL certificates are usually more expensive, and I don't want to force that.

Considering all that, here is what I want to achieve:

• Each website still would be formed by two web2py apps, so in our example, we would still have these four web2py apps: 
• applications/recipes
• applications/recipes_panel
• applications/traveler
• applications/traveler_panel
  
  
• The public portion of a website would still have to be served in the top level domain, and the default controller and default function would be 'default' and 'index' respectively, so:
• recipes.com/ --------------->  /recipes/default/index
• recipes.com/contact  ---->  /recipes/default/contact
• recipes.com/load/init ---->  /recipes/load/init
• (same stuff for every other domain)
  
  
• The control panel (and this is how it gets tricky) would have to be served through /panel (notice that the app name is different), so:
• recipes.com/panel  ------------------->  /recipes_panel/default/index
• recipes.com/panel/contenido ------>  /recipes_panel/default/contenido
• recipes.com/panel/ads/new -------->  /recipes_panel/ads/new
  
  
• traveler.com/panel  ------------------->  /traveler_panel/default/index
• traveler.com/panel/contenido ------>  /traveler_panel/default/contenido
• traveler.com/panel/ads/new -------->  /traveler_panel/ads/new
  
  
• Each domain would allow to access only the couple of apps regarding that website, that is:
• "recipes" and "recipes_panel" apps would only be accessible trough recipes.com domain
• "traveler" and "traveler_panel" apps would only be accessible trough traveler.com domain

I think I need to use pattern-based routing system, but I've never used python's regular expressions at all. I'm reading about it and doing some tests, but I'm having a hard time to figure out how should I do it.

Remember that I'm willing to pay for the job if you consider that you know how to do it. 

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,

Lisandro.

[Lisandro]

Well, after a few hours of testing with pattern-based routing system, I've achieved what I was looking for. Oh yeah :D

Here is what I did, in case someone is trying to do the same (continuing the example of the first post).

In the web2py main folder, this is routes.py:

routes_app = [
    (r'.*?://recipes.com:\w* /$anything', r'recipes'),
    (r'.*?://traveler.com:\w* /$anything', r'traveler'),
]

Notice that I will serve two apps per domain, but in the routes_app I specify only the main app.

This allows me to define a routes.py for the main app of each domain.

In my case, this is applications/recipes/routes.py:

 ('/', '/recipes/default/index'),
 ('/robots.txt', '/recipes/static/robots.txt'),
 ('/favicon.png', '/recipes/static/custom/favicon.png'),
 ('/download$anything', '/recipes/default/download$anything'),
 ('/static$anything', '/recipes/static$anything'),

 ('/panel/static$anything', '/recipes_panel/static$anything'),
 ('/panel', '/recipes_panel/default/index'),
 ('/panel$anything', '/recipes_panel$anything'),
]

# for every function in the default controller
for key in ('contact', 'other_function', 'aboutus', 'myfunction'):  
    routes_in.append(('/%s$anything' % key, '/recipes/default/%s$anything' % key))

routes_in.append(('/$anything', '/recipes/default/index/$anything'))

routes_out = [(x, y) for (y, x) in routes_in]

Then I have applications/traveler/routes.py, which has the same content that the file before, but replacing "recipes" with "traveler".

And that's it, works like a charm.

Now there is one thing that I couldn't achieve: how to avoid all the apps being accessed from any domain?

I'll close this question and post a new question about this.