[Axe]

A hack like this is real easy...

You just need to be able to wildcard DNS.

have *.yourdomain.com pointing to the IP address.

Then set a default vhost for all non-specific names.

Like you set one up for www.yoursite.com, which goes to your main site, you set one up for forum.yoursite.com, which goes to your forum, gallery.yoursite.com to go to your gallery, whatever...

Then you have all the others by default going to the default vhost with just a php file which simply forwards to their profile URL.

You just have it grab the first part of the hostname the whatever.yourdomain.com.. whack it in a variable like $subdom....

Then have it send the "location"..

header("Location: http://forum.yoursite.com/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&username=$subdom");

or...

header("Location: http://www.yoursite.com/forum/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&username=$subdom");

Now, obviously just doing something as simple as this won't do any checking as to whether the name exists or not...

BUT, you can always just whack a lil SQL query in there before you forward 'em to wherever. Once you've figured out what should go in $subdom, simply connect to the vB database, say "Hey, is there anybody with the username $subdom?"

If it says yes, forward to the appropriate URL. If it says no, forward 'em to your forum/website's homepage

But, most web hosters ain't gonna be playing around with wildcard DNS on u'r domain, and depending on their mood, they might charge you an arm & a leg to modify the apache config, setup the DNS, etc...

If you've got your own dedicated box though, and know how to do it, it only takes about 10 minutes to set it up, another 10 to figure out the script. You just gotta wait for DNS to update so everywhere knows u'r wildcard DNSing now.