How to Host multiple Websites on Apache2
March 29, 2012 in Apache Configuration
How to Host multiple Websites on Apache2
Let’s say that we own 2 or more domain names (hostpage1.com and hostpage2.com). We also have 2 web pages (hostpage1 and hostpage2). But we have only 1 webserver and 1 public IP (for this example i will use local IP but it will be the same if you own a public static IP)
Setting up the Domain names.
First thing is to create an "A record" in the DNS of your Domain Names to point "www" to your public or local IP address of your Web Server. I use local DNS in this example. So i will point the "www" for both of my domain names to 192.168.0.31. So it will be something like that:
www.hostpage1.com --> 192.168.0.31
www.hostpage2.com --> 192.168.0.31
Now if i ping www.hostpage1.com or www.hostpage2.com i will receive reply from the same ip (in my case 192.168.0.31). This IP is the IP of my Web Server. Test that everything is ok by typing in a terminal:
ping www."the name of your domain name"
You should get reply from the Public IP of your web server:
In this example i use the following:
ping www.hostpage1.com
ping www.hostpage2.com
Setup directories for webpages
Now I will create 2 directories for my Web Pages (Hostpage1 and Hostpage2) in the directory named /var/ do that by opening a terminal and typing:
cd /var/
sudo mkdir hostroot
cd hostroot
sudo mkdir hostpage1
sudo mkdir hostpage2
Now i have 2 directories (hostpage1 and hostpage2) inside the "hostroot" directory. I will copy my 2 homepages, for my 2 domain names, inside my 2 directories and i will name both pages, as index.php(in this 2 directories you should copy your websites). So it will be something like the following
hostroot
|-->hostpage1
| |-->index.php
|-->hostpage2
|-->index.php
Configure Apache
The last thing i have to do is to edit "/etc/apache2/sites-available/default" do that by typing in a terminal:
sudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/default
add the following lines at the end of this document
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /var/hostroot/hostpage1
ServerName www.hostpage1.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /var/hostroot/hostpage2
ServerName www.hostpage2.com
</VirtualHost>
Save the file and exit.
now restart Apache2 by typing in a terminal
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Open a browser and navigate to http://www.hostpage1.com and http://www.hostpage2.com.
You can do that to host multiple sites in your Web Server.
A video tutorial will be available soon so stay tuned!
Thanks, very useful for remember basic apache =)
Hosting a PHP website with Apache2 webserver looks quite tiring and long process. Instead of manual process, why not automate it? Platforms, like Cloudways, lets you launch a PHP server on an infrastructure in one-click. The platform automatically setups OS and stack on the server. This saves you time.
do you have any platforms about that? help me if you know. communicate me here johannesndjimba@gmail.com