How To Set Up Apache Virtual Hosts on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Introduction
The Apache web server is the most popular way of serving web content on the internet. It accounts for more than half of all active websites on the internet and is extremely powerful and flexible.Apache breaks its functionality and components into individual units that can be customized and configured independently. The basic unit that describes an individual site or domain is called a
virtual host.These designations allow the administrator to use one server to host multiple domains or sites off of a single interface or IP by using a matching mechanism. This is relevant to anyone looking to host more than one site off of a single VPS.
Each domain that is configured will direct the visitor to a specific directory holding that site's information, never indicating that the same server is also responsible for other sites. This scheme is expandable without any software limit as long as your server can handle the load.
In this guide, we will walk you through how to set up Apache virtual hosts on an Ubuntu 14.04 VPS. During this process, you'll learn how to serve different content to different visitors depending on which domains they are requesting.
Prerequisites
Before you begin this tutorial, you should create a non-root user as described in steps 1-4 here.You will also need to have Apache installed in order to work through these steps. If you haven't already done so, you can get Apache installed on your server through
apt-get:sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2
For the purposes of this guide, my configuration will make a virtual host for
example.com and another for test.com. These will be referenced throughout the guide, but you should substitute your own domains or values while following along.To learn how to set up your domain names with DigitalOcean, follow this link. If you do not have domains available to play with, you can use dummy values.
We will show how to edit your local hosts file later on to test the configuration if you are using dummy values. This will allow you to test your configuration from your home computer, even though your content won't be available through the domain name to other visitors.
Step One — Create the Directory Structure
The first step that we are going to take is to make a directory structure that will hold the site data that we will be serving to visitors.Our
document root (the top-level directory that Apache looks at to find content to serve) will be set to individual directories under the /var/www directory. We will create a directory here for both of the virtual hosts we plan on making.Within each of these directories, we will create a
public_html file that will hold our actual files. This gives us some flexibility in our hosting.For instance, for our sites, we're going to make our directories like this:
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.com/public_html sudo mkdir -p /var/www/test.com/public_htmlThe portions in red represent the domain names that we are wanting to serve from our VPS.
Step Two — Grant Permissions
Now we have the directory structure for our files, but they are owned by our root user. If we want our regular user to be able to modify files in our web directories, we can change the ownership by doing this:sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/example.com/public_html sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/test.com/public_htmlThe
$USER variable will take the value of the user you are currently logged in as when you press "ENTER". By doing this, our regular user now owns the public_html subdirectories where we will be storing our content.We should also modify our permissions a little bit to ensure that read access is permitted to the general web directory and all of the files and folders it contains so that pages can be served correctly:
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www
Step Three — Create Demo Pages for Each Virtual Host
We have our directory structure in place. Let's create some content to serve.We're just going for a demonstration, so our pages will be very simple. We're just going to make an
index.html page for each site.Let's start with
example.com. We can open up an index.html file in our editor by typing:nano /var/www/example.com/public_html/index.html
In this file, create a simple HTML document that indicates the site it is connected to. My file looks like this:<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to Example.com!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Success! The example.com virtual host is working!</h1>
</body>
</html>
Save and close the file when you are finished.We can copy this file to use as the basis for our second site by typing:
cp /var/www/example.com/public_html/index.html /var/www/test.com/public_html/index.htmlWe can then open the file and modify the relevant pieces of information:
nano /var/www/test.com/public_html/index.html
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to Test.com!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Success! The test.com virtual host is working!</h1>
</body>
</html>
Save and close this file as well. You now have the pages necessary to test the virtual host configuration.Step Four — Create New Virtual Host Files
Virtual host files are the files that specify the actual configuration of our virtual hosts and dictate how the Apache web server will respond to various domain requests.Apache comes with a default virtual host file called
000-default.conf that we can use as a jumping off point. We are going to copy it over to create a virtual host file for each of our domains.We will start with one domain, configure it, copy it for our second domain, and then make the few further adjustments needed. The default Ubuntu configuration requires that each virtual host file end in
.conf.Create the First Virtual Host File
Start by copying the file for the first domain:sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf
Open the new file in your editor with root privileges:sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf
The file will look something like this (I've removed the comments here to make the file more approachable):<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
As you can see, there's not much here. We will customize the items here for our first domain and add some additional directives. This virtual host section matches any requests that are made on port 80, the default HTTP port.First, we need to change the
ServerAdmin directive to an email that the site administrator can receive emails through.ServerAdmin admin@example.com
After this, we need to add two directives. The first, called ServerName, establishes the base domain that should match for this virtual host definition. This will most likely be your domain. The second, called ServerAlias, defines further names that should match as if they were the base name. This is useful for matching hosts you defined, like www:ServerName example.com ServerAlias www.example.comThe only other thing we need to change for a basic virtual host file is the location of the document root for this domain. We already created the directory we need, so we just need to alter the
DocumentRoot directive to reflect the directory we created:DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/public_html
In total, our virtualhost file should look like this:<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@example.com
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/public_html
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Save and close the file.Copy First Virtual Host and Customize for Second Domain
Now that we have our first virtual host file established, we can create our second one by copying that file and adjusting it as needed.Start by copying it:
sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/test.com.confOpen the new file with root privileges in your editor:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/test.com.conf
You now need to modify all of the pieces of information to reference your second domain. When you are finished, it may look something like this:<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@test.com
ServerName test.com
ServerAlias www.test.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/test.com/public_html
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Save and close the file when you are finished.Step Five — Enable the New Virtual Host Files
Now that we have created our virtual host files, we must enable them. Apache includes some tools that allow us to do this.We can use the
a2ensite tool to enable each of our sites like this:sudo a2ensite example.com.conf sudo a2ensite test.com.confWhen you are finished, you need to restart Apache to make these changes take affect:
sudo service apache2 restart
* Restarting web server apache2
AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.0.1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message
Step Six — Set Up Local Hosts File (Optional)
If you haven't been using actual domain names that you own to test this procedure and have been using some example domains instead, you can at least test the functionality of this process by temporarily modifying thehosts file on your local computer.This will intercept any requests for the domains that you configured and point them to your VPS server, just as the DNS system would do if you were using registered domains. This will only work from your computer though, and is simply useful for testing purposes.
Make sure you are operating on your local computer for these steps and not your VPS server. You will need to know the computer's administrative password or otherwise be a member of the administrative group.
If you are on a Mac or Linux computer, edit your local file with administrative privileges by typing:
sudo nano /etc/hosts
The details that you need to add are the public IP address of your VPS server followed by the domain you want to use to reach that VPS.
For the domains that I used in this guide, assuming that my VPS IP address is
111.111.111.111, I could add the following lines to the bottom of my hosts file:127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.1.1 guest-desktop 111.111.111.111 example.com 111.111.111.111 test.comThis will direct any requests for
example.com and test.com on our computer and send them to our server at 111.111.111.111. This is what we want if we are not actually the owners of these domains in order to test our virtual hosts.Save and close the file.
Step Seven — Test your Results
Now that you have your virtual hosts configured, you can test your setup easily by going to the domains that you configured in your web browser:http://example.com
You should see a page that looks like this:
Likewise, if you can visit your second page:
http://test.com
You will see the file you created for your second site:
If both of these sites work well, you've successfully configured two virtual hosts on the same server.
If you adjusted your home computer's hosts file, you may want to delete the lines you added now that you verified that your configuration works. This will prevent your hosts file from being filled with entries that are not actually necessary.
If you need to access this long term, consider purchasing a domain name for each site you need and setting it up to point to your VPS server.
Conclusion
If you followed along, you should now have a single server handling two separate domain names. You can expand this process by following the steps we outlined above to make additional virtual hosts.There is no software limit on the number of domain names Apache can handle, so feel free to make as many as your server is capable of handling.
- michaelleblanc1 April 24, 2014Got stuck at the "Create the First Virtual Host File" step: my droplet has a file called "default" and "default-ssl" in sites-available, not "default.conf" as stated. And is the subsequent statement: "The default Ubuntu configuration requires that each virtual host file end in .conf." still correct?
- Andrew SB April 24, 2014@michaelleblanc1: It sounds like you are on a different Ubuntu release, perhaps 12.04. This tutorial is specifically talking about 14.04 where the file has been renamed from simply "default" to "000-default.conf" Assuming that you are on 12.04, you should be fine, but you might also want to take a look at this article: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-set-up-apache-virtual-hosts-on-ubuntu-12-04-lts
- kerem April 28, 2014Thanks for this great tutorial. My primary virtual host (ie example.com) is alive and well. My droplet's ip address still points to /var/www/html though and provides the "Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page". I would like my ip to point to the new virtual host I created and hence to /var/www/test.com/public_html. How can I achieve this result? Thank you.
- Andrew SB April 28, 2014@Kerem: Do you still have the default configuration enabled? If so, edit the file "/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf" and change "DocumentRoot /var/www/html" to "DocumentRoot /var/www/test.com/public_html"
- kerem April 29, 2014@Andrew SB, Thank you very much. This worked perfectly.
- almeralmazan May 1, 2014Thank you very much.. Your guide help me a lot. =)
- 1000km.s May 3, 2014Hi i had troubles pointing the domain to i'ts directory witch can be fixed by editing example.com.conf before: after: Now is working but i'm not sure that this is right solution.
- 1000km.s May 3, 2014Sorry "which" not "witch ".
- aveeshkumar May 7, 2014I also had to specify Require all granted in the conf file as per http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/upgrading.html
- aveeshkumar May 7, 2014Posting comment filtered out the <> tags for lt tag directory /var/www/test.com/public_html/ gt tag Require all granted lt tag /directory gt tag in the conf file as per http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/upgrading.html
- roosterx813 May 8, 2014It worked for me,by doing this tutorial i learned about config files, command line, and got a website! Thank-you, roosterscomputerrepair.with-linux.com
- r2d2t2 May 20, 2014This works for me for 12.04 just by creating 000-default.conf instead of default default.conf. Now I am looking for how to incorporate secure (https) website as I have startssl.com certificate and key. Thanks for WONDERFUL work D.O.
- mulyana2205 May 22, 2014i got stuck in sudo a2ensite example.com.conf my terminal said "Site example.com does not exist" i miss something, or this tutorial not working in ubuntu 14.10?
- Andrew SB May 22, 2014@mulyana2205: Does the file "
/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf" actually exist? When you run "sudo a2ensite" make sure you use the name of the actual file you created. - kasnca May 27, 2014You don't have permission to access / on this server.
- Kamal Nasser May 28, 2014@kasnca: Do you have an index file in your documentroot?
- fabian.socarras June 7, 2014@kasnca: I was getting the same. Try adding: Require all granted It worked for me.
- isahappyperson June 8, 2014i copied the /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf over to /etc/apache2/sites-available/ididntsee.com.conf and edit it from there but am still getting the default apache 2 page instead of the index.html page I created two virtual host using two domain names I own and want to host on one droplet. The IP for one is still propagating but the first one is set and shows the default apache2 page.
- isahappyperson June 8, 2014Scratch the first comment. I started over from scratch, new server with new ip - directed both domain names to new IP, followed all directions including new non-root user and now all I am getting is 404 not found error on one site and "could not connect to isahappyperson.com" error on the other. I took each step slowly as to not make any mistakes so I have no clue what to do now. Does anyone know what is wrong? droplet server is on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
- isahappyperson June 8, 2014update: I directed the domain names to the new IP in the DO dashboard but failed to change them where I registered the domain names. So, now one site works fine - is showing the custom index.html but the other site is showing the apache2 default index.html Any thoughts?
- isahappyperson June 8, 2014update: ididntsee.com is working www.ididntsee.com is working isahappyperson.com is NOT working www.isahappyperson.com is working both .com.conf files are the same except the domain name itself DocumentRoot /var/www/isahappyperson.com/public_html ServerName isahappyperson.com ServerAlias www.isahappyperson.com and... DocumentRoot /var/www/ididntsee.com/public_html ServerName ididntsee.com ServerAlias www.ididntsee.com So, why is one working and not the other?
- isahappyperson June 8, 2014Update: Glad to report that all is well and working fine. Had to run a2dissite 000-default then service apache2 restart All is good now :)
- brunovaulawerneck June 11, 2014What if I need to host my server files outsite /var/www ? All of my projects are on my Dropbox folder and I simply cannot access them using the default virtualhost configuration on Ubuntu 14.04 + LAMP. I followed your instructions to the letter with no success. All I get is a 403 document with the message "You don't have permission to access / on this server." I tried other tutorials but none has solved my problem. Here's my virtual host configuration:< Virtualhost *:80 > DocumentRoot /home/brunowerneck/Dropbox/Projetos/websites/Site/web Servername site.servidor.home < Directory /home/brunowerneck/Dropbox/Projetos/websites/Site/web/ > AllowOverride All Require all granted < /Directory >< /Virtualhost > I have also tried to change folder ownership to root, to www-data and back to my user and chmod 755. None worked. Quotation marks on DocumentRoot and Directory directives make no difference. Any clues?
- brunovaulawerneck June 11, 2014I did it! It turns out it was a permissions problem. By further reading Apache2 documentation, I noticed it said I had to give 755 permission on the entire path, not only on my DocumentRoot. So I did: cd /home/brunowerneck sudo chmod -R 755 Dropbox/ And voilà, everything works as they should! Finally!
- tinhtutsoe June 27, 2014Great Tutorial ... It is work.
- thedarkangel771 June 29, 2014but tis is onlt local how to make for internet ..who can help me to make it pls
- Andrew SB June 30, 2014@thedarkangel771: Are you installing this on a server that has port 80 open to the internet? If you're doing this on a local computer, you're most likely behind a router. You'd need to open the port in your router as well, but that's a little off topic for here.
- ansarob July 2, 2014Exactly what I needed, thank you Justin!! :)
- bartosz.dega July 4, 2014Hi
I used this tutorial and everything worked fine for me. Thanks for that.
But I have opposite to usual question. Is it possible to get to this website by an internal ip without editing host file. I would like to avoid it, so everybody in local network could access webpage by ip.
Btw. this website is working perfectly fine by typing URL in web browser from both internal and external network. - cebomakeleni July 7, 2014Great tutorial, thank you.
How would I go about modifying my files to get my django project running? I tried pointing the document root to my django project, but all I get is a page with the files in my project i.e wsgi.py, urls.py etc. I want to use mod_python but I am not sure what to change. - Andrew SB July 7, 2014@cebomakeleni: You need to use
mod_wsgi. Check out the docs on the Django Project's site. - Kamal Nasser about 9 hours ago@bartosz.dega: You can add the IP as an alias of the Virtual host:
ServerAlias www.domain.com 1.2.3.4
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