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What Is Apache Virtual Host And How to Use It?

Hello and welcome! How are things going? Today I decided to focus my blog on Apache Virtual Host. These days people are so concerned and into Apache Virtual Host, which led you here, so without wasting any time, we must start with it, as we have covered all the possible details.

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What is Apache Virtual Host?

Apache Virtual Hosts A.K.

A Virtual Host (Vhost) is used to run several websites (domains) from a single I.P. address. In other words, numerous websites (domains) can coexist on a single server. Depending on the user’s requested URL, different sites will be displayed. The best aspect is that you can have unlimited virtual hosts on a single server. Basically, it means that you can host an unlimited number of web pages (domains) on a single server.

Requests from each domain will be routed to the appropriate document root. If you are not sure what document root implies, it is the location of all the files of the website files (which may be public HTML). We believe that you are familiar with the term “document root,” but I am just playing about (tongue-out-face). Let’s get back to business. So, here are two branches:

  1. Name-based Virtual Host
  2. Virtual Host Using I.P.

In the majority of cases, a name-based virtual host is employed. So now we are going to discuss Name-Based Virtual Hosts and their setups. I don’t want you to be in the dark. As a result, I will also go through the fundamentals of IP-Based Virtual Host.

1. Virtual Host with I.P. Address

In this circumstance, the physical server should have two I.P. addresses, which means it should have two ethernet cards, each of which is configured to the specific I.P. address of the associated website. Don’t be perplexed. There exists only one physical server running Apache, yet it has two I.P. addresses.

www.abc.com has an I.P. address of 192.168.100.1 and an Apache virtual host that links to the document root of www.abc.com.
www.xyz.com has the I.P. address 192.168.100.2 and an Apache virtual host that links to the document root of www.xyz.com.

2. Virtual Host with a Name

The majority of the time, you will use name-based virtual host settings. Let me describe what happens, and then we will talk about how to get this done. When a request is sent to the Apache web server, it searches for the hostname in the HTTP header. The requested URL will be provided based on the hostname. In contrast to the preceding case, the server here has only one I.P. address, but several websites (domains) will point to it. Both abc.com and xyz.com point to the same Apache web server, which has the I.P. address 192.168.100.1. In this case, we will need two virtual hosts: one for xyz.com and one for abc.com. Do you have questions regarding how to set up your virtual host? That is what we are going to cover next.

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How Does Apache Virtual Host Work?

We will concentrate on name-based virtual hosting in this section. To set up a virtual host, you will need the following items. What we refer to as “prerequisites.”

– The Apache web server
– A directory containing the files for the website.
– Appropriate permissions, 755 for directories and 644 for files

If you meet all of the qualifications listed above, you are ready to go. Let’s go technical.

1۔ Create a new Virtual Host File

We have given a copy of the default file in this section.

2۔ Edit the New Virtual Host File

To do this, the program will open the newly created file. If you don’t have a vim editor, you can use vi or nano editor instead.

3۔ Virtual Host

Now, please allow me to elaborate. The sections VirtualHost define all virtual hosts. Keep in mind that while having logs on your vhost is not required, it does make it easier to figure out what is going on.

– Virtual Host: Virtual hosts will listen on port 80 by default (could 443 if you are using HTTPS)
– Server Admin: The email address of the server administrator
– Document Root: The path to the files of the website.
– Server Name: The name of the server.
– Server Aliases: Different names
– Error Log: This file contains any errors encountered while processing requests.
– Custom Log: A log of all requests handled by the server. Log File of access

It is worth noting that you don’t have to include all of the directives in your virtual host. Even Document Root and Server Name would suffice.

4۔ Restart Apache.

Remember to restart Apache whenever you make configuration changes.

5۔ Turn off the virtual host.

If you wish to disable the virtual host at any time, you can easily use the command. a2dissite is an Apache built-in command.

Hints and tips

I am going to tell you about a shady approach to getting the job done. However, the procedure outlined below is not recommended.

Instead of going through all of the previous procedures, you can just change the apache2.conf file, which contains all of the Apache server configurations. Simply copy and paste the VirtualHost code snippet into the server and restart it. The disadvantage is that you cannot enable or disable the sites using a2ensite or a2dissite.

That is all there is to Apache virtual hosts. We are hopeful that this article will be helpful for you to understand all about the Apache virtual host.

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