These days, with evolving hardware, it is more cost efficient to host multiple web servers on one service.

Together with improving software, such thing can be easily achieved.

I am describing in this article how to create 2 virtual hosts named test1.com and test2.com.

Virtual Host in Apache 2.4

I am using for Apache 2.4 for virtual host.

1. Create root directory

   Typically web contents are served from files under /var/www in linux.

   You can add subdirectory under it to create separate document root for each virtual host.

   How I do it is by creating directory www under /srv and create another sub-directories for each virtual host.

   eg.

   #> cd /srv
   #> mkdir www
   #> mkdir www/test1
   #> mkdir www/test2
   

2. Add content to document root

   #> nano /srv/www/test1/index.html
   #> nano /srv/www/test2/index.html
   

3. Define virtual host in apache config file

   Apache 2.4 will generate server(s) by referencing config files under /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/, however, as a rule of thumb, you should create a config file under /etc/apache2/sites-available/ and once it’s complete, generate a symbolic link.

   #> nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/testserver.conf
   #> cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/
   #> ln -s ../sites-available/testserver.conf testserver.conf
   

   The content of testserver.conf will look like below:

   <VirtualHost *:80>
       ServerName test1.com
       DocumentRoot /srv/www/test1
   </VirtualHost>
   
   <VirtualHost *:80>
       ServerName test2.com
       DocumentRoot /srv/www/test2
   </VirtualHost>
   

   4 lines are enough to create the Virtual Host!

   Essential to be wrapped within directive is:

   • ServerName: specifies what hostname must appear in the request’s Host: header to match this virtual host. It can be omitted so it will be the last resort host.
   • DocumentRoot: identifies where the document is served from

   Optionally you can add more directives to control the accesses / redirect / alias, etc.

4. Map the domain to the virtual hosts

   In my example, I am hosting a server to my self. So am modifying hosts file to be able to recognise the virtual host.

   #> cat /etc/hosts
   127.0.0.1       localhost   test1.com   test2.com
   ...
   

   When you make it public, you modify the A record of your domain provider.

5. Test it

   Now you can wget or curl it to test it out!

   wget -O - http://test1.com

That’s it!