Installing a new virtual host in the Apache Web server

The purpose of this tutorial is to walk through the process of configuring and initiating a new Apache web server virtual host. A virtual host is a "profile" that detects which DNS host (e.g., www.MyOtherhostname.com) is being called for at any given IP address. It is possible to narrow this further by only coupling IP addresses and hostnames in the virtual host configuration, but I will skip that and assume that every IP address the server has is permitted to access the virtual host.

This instructable was made specifically with a Debian server running Apache 2.2.x.

Step 1 Login and get to the right place

First, log in and change directories to your configuration directory. In most sane servers, this means logging in as a user with superuser privileges, and going somewhere in /etc/

$ ssh [e-mail]
Password: exciting_password
Welcome!
~$ cd /etc/apache2/sites-available

Comments

[admin]

Hey, this is a great instructable and is very informative. Just one thing is missing... pictures! It really helps a lot when trying to follow directions so you should consider taking some photographs. Once you do that and leave me a message when you have so that we can publish your work. Thanks! Thanks for the cool instructable and we hope to publish this soon!

[Tarek_Loubani]

I'm actually not sure how photos would aid this particular instructable, except to make it a bit more pretty. Anyhow, pretty pictures inserted! : ) tarek : )

[Computothought]

ubuntu 10.04 has some gotchas with virtual hosts. Also had to change 000-default.

[uranus_b_hurtin]

FYI -- Apache 2.2 has a dummy vhosts-conf file in the /conf/extras directory that you can replicate and call from httpd.conf.

The design minimizes the edit work in httpd.conf.