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How do primary and alternate vhosts work?
Answer ID 9658   |   Last Review Date 01/14/2019

How do primary and alternate vhosts work?

Environment:

All supported versions
Sites that use custom domain SSL
Oracle B2C Service

Issue:

We are unclear as to the purpose and function of vhosts and how they apply to our instance of Oracle B2C Service.

Resolution:

A vhost is simply a 'virtual host' which identifies a hostname on the web. In the case of an Oracle B2C Service interface, a vhost takes advantage of DNS records to associate a specific hostname to your site, in much the same way as a traditional host would. This process is what allows a vhost to be fully customizable but still point to the correct server in our data center environment.

 

Every interface must have at least one primary vhost, but can have optional alternate vhosts. Although an interface can have multiple alternate vhosts, the alternate's only purpose is to redirect traffic to the primary.

 

It is possible to modify a vhost to a custom one of your choosing.  However, if you do not have a certificate to cover the desired domain, users will encounter SSL errors if they try to use the HTTPS protocol. Depending on your site's configuration, there could also be undesired effects in the console's behavior as well. For this reason, it is not advised to modify the vhost unless you provide us with a custom domain SSL certificate, which we then host for you. More information on SSL certificates can be found at the following answer:

Answer ID 2031: Using SSL and your own domain name in the URL for a site

If you choose to not use our self-service system to update vhosts during a certificate change, non-impacting requests to modify vhosts should go through Oracle Consulting Services. Requests to Technical Support should only be submitted in cases where there is an immediate impact to the business, such as a site down scenario or similar outage due to the vhost configuration.