Tutorials Questions Learning Paths For Businesses Product Docs S

// TUTORIAL //

How To Set Up Apache Virtual Hosts on Ubuntu 20.04

Published on April 19, 2022

Apache Ubuntu 20.04 Ubuntu

Kong Yang and Lisa Tagliaferri

Not using Ubuntu 20.04?

This site uses cookies and related technologies, as described in
Choose a different version or distribution.
Ubuntu 20.04
our privacy policy, for purposes that may include site operation, MANAGE CHOICES
analytics, enhanced user experience, or advertising. You may choose
to consent to our use of these technologies, or manage your own AGREE & PROCEED
preferences.
Introduction

The Apache HTTP server is a popular open-source web server that offers flexibility,
power, and widespread support for developers. Apache server configuration does
not take place in a single monolithic file, but instead happens through a modular
design where new files can be added and modified as needed. Within this modular
design, you can create an individual site or domain called a virtual host.
Using virtual hosts, one Apache instance can serve multiple websites. Each domain
or individual site that is configured using Apache will direct the visitor to a specific
directory holding that site’s information. This is done without indicating to the visitor
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, you will set up Apache virtual hosts on an Ubuntu 20.04 server. During
this process, you’ll learn how to serve different content to different visitors
depending on which domains they are requesting by creating two virtual host sites.
Prerequisites

Before you begin this tutorial, you will need:

An Ubuntu 20.04 server with a non-root user with sudo privileges. You can use
our Initial Server Setup with Ubuntu 20.04 guide to set this up.
Apache installed on the server. You can learn how by completing steps 1-3 on our
How To Install the Apache Web Server on Ubuntu 20.04 tutorial.
If you are using DigitalOcean, you can learn how to set up domains by following our
product documentation, How to Add Domains.
In order to successfully complete this tutorial, you will need two domains with:
An A record with your_domain pointing to your server’s public IP address.
An A record with www.your_domain pointing to your server’s public IP address.
For other providers, please refer to their relevant product documentation.

Note: If you do not have domains available at this time, you can use test values
locally on your computer. Step 6 of this tutorial will show you how to test and
configure your test values. This will allow you to validate your configuration even
though your content won’t be available to other visitors through the domain name.
Step 1 — Creating the Directory Structure

The first step is to create a directory structure that will hold the site data that you
will be serving to visitors.
Your 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. You will
create a directory here for each of the virtual hosts.
Within each of these directories, you will create a public_html directory. The
public_html directory contains the content that will be served to your visitors. The
parent directories, named here as your_domain_1 and your_domain_2 , will hold the
scripts and application code to support the web content.
Use these commands, with your own domain names, to create your directories:
Copy
$ sudo mkdir -p /var/www/ your_domain_1 /public_html
$ sudo mkdir -p /var/www/ your_domain_2 /public_html

Be sure to replace your_domain_1 and your_domain_2 with your own respective

domains. For example, if one of your domains was example.com you would create
this directory structure: /var/www/example.com/public_html .
Step 2 — Granting Permissions

You’ve created the directory structure for your files, but they are owned by the root
user. If you want your regular user to be able to modify files in these web directories,
you can change the ownership with these commands:
Copy
$ sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/ your_domain_1 /public_html
$ sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/ your_domain_2 /public_html

The $USER variable will take the value of the user you are currently logged in as
when you press ENTER . By doing this, the regular user now owns the public_html
subdirectories where you will be storing your content.
You should also modify your permissions to ensure that read access is permitted to
the general web directory and all of the files and folders it contains so that the
pages can be served correctly:
Copy
$ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www

Your web server now has the permissions it needs to serve content, and your user
should be able to create content within the necessary folders. The next step is to
create content for your virtual host sites.
Step 3 — Creating Default Pages for Each Virtual

Host

With your directory structure in place, you can start focusing on each individual
virtual host site and the content within that site. Start by creating an index.html
page for your first site your_domain_1 .
Open and create the index.html file with your preferred text editor. This example
uses nano :
Copy
$ nano /var/www/ your_domain_1 /public_html/index.html

Within this file, create an HTML file that indicates to visitors which site they are
connected to:
/var/www/your_domain_1/public_html/index.html
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to your_domain_1 !</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Success! The your_domain_1 virtual host is working!</h1>
</body>
</html>

To save and close the file in nano , start by pressing CTRL+X . Press Y when prompted
to save the file, then press ENTER when you are finished to exit.
Next, copy this file to use as the base for your second site by typing:
Copy
$ cp /var/www/ your_domain_1 /public_html/index.html /var/www/ your_domain_2 /pub

Then open this new file and modify the relevant pieces of information using your
text editor like before:
Copy
$ nano /var/www/ your_domain_2 /public_html/index.html

/var/www/your_domain_2/public_html/index.html
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to your_domain_2 !</title>
</head>
<body> <h1>Success! The your_domain_2 virtual host is working!</h1>
</body>
</html>

Save and close this file. You now have one page for each site that you can use to
test the virtual host configuration.
Step 4 — Creating New Virtual Host Files

Virtual host files are the files that specify the actual configuration of your virtual
hosts and dictates how the Apache web server will respond to various domain
requests.
Apache comes with a default virtual host file called 000-default.conf . You can copy
this file to create virtual host files for each of your domains.
Copy the default configuration file over to the first domain:
 Copy
$ sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sites-avail

Be aware that the default Ubuntu configuration requires that each virtual host file
end in .conf .
Open the new file in your preferred text editor with root privileges:
Copy
$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/ your_domain_1 .conf

With comments removed, the file will be similar to this:

/etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain_1.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
...
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
...
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Within this file, customize the items for your 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, change the ServerAdmin directive to an email that the site administrator can
receive emails through:
/etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain_1.conf
ServerAdmin admin@your_domain_1

After this, add two additional directives. The first, called ServerName , establishes the
base domain for the virtual host definition. The second, called ServerAlias , defines
further names that should match as if they were the base name. This is useful for
matching additional hosts you defined. For instance, if you set the ServerName
directive to example.com you could define a ServerAlias to www.example.com , and
both will point to this server’s IP address.
Add these two directives to your configuration file after the ServerAdmin line:
/etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain_1.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
...
ServerAdmin admin@your_domain_1
ServerName your_domain_1
ServerAlias www.your_domain_1
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
...
</VirtualHost>

Next, change your virtual host file location for the document root for this domain.
Edit the DocumentRoot directive to point to the directory you created for this host:
/etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain_1.conf
DocumentRoot /var/www/ your_domain_1 /public_html

Here is an example of the virtual host file with all of the adjustments made above:
/etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain_1.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
...
ServerAdmin admin@your_domain_1
ServerName your_domain_1
ServerAlias www.your_domain_1
DocumentRoot /var/www/ your_domain_1 /public_html
...
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
...
</VirtualHost>

Save and close the file.

Create your second configuration file by copying over the file from your first virtual
host site:
Copy
$ sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/ your_domain_1 .conf /etc/apache2/sites-a

Open the new file in your preferred editor:

Copy
$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/ your_domain_2 .conf

You now need to modify all of the pieces of information to reference your second
domain. When you are finished, it should look like this:
/etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain_2.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
...
ServerAdmin admin@your_domain_2
ServerName your_domain_2
ServerAlias www.your_domain_2
DocumentRoot /var/www/ your_domain_2 /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 5 — Enabling the New Virtual Host Files

Now that you have created your virtual host files, you must enable them. Apache
includes some tools that allow you to do this.
You’ll be using the a2ensite tool to enable each of your sites. If you would like to
read more about this script, you can refer to the a2ensite documentation.
Use the following commands to enable your virtual host sites:
Copy
$ sudo a2ensite your_domain_1 .conf
$ sudo a2ensite your_domain_2 .conf

There will be output for both sites, similar to the example below, reminding you to
reload your Apache server:
Output
Enabling site example.com .
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
systemctl reload apache2

Before reloading your server, disable the default site defined in 000-default.conf by
using the a2dissite command:
Copy
$ sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf

Output
Site 000-default disabled.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
systemctl reload apache2

Next, test for configuration errors:

Copy
$ sudo apache2ctl configtest

The should receive the following output:

Output
. . .
 Syntax OK

When you are finished, restart Apache to make these changes take effect.
Copy
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2

Optionally, you can check the status of the server after all these changes with this
command:
Copy
$ sudo systemctl status apache2

Your server should now be set up to serve two websites. If you’re using real domain
names, you can skip Step 6 and move on to Step 7. If you’re testing your
configuration locally, follow Step 6 to learn how to test your setup using your local
computer.
Step 6 — (Optional) Setting Up Local Hosts File

If you haven’t been using actual domain names that you own to test this procedure,
and have been using example domains instead, you can still test the functionality of
your virtual host sites by temporarily modifying the hosts file on your local
computer. This will intercept any requests for the domains that you configured and
point them to your Virtual Private Server (VPS), just as the DNS system would do if
you were using registered domains. This will only work from your local computer and
is only 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:
Copy
 $ sudo nano /etc/hosts

If you are on a Windows machine, open the Command Prompt and type:
Copy
c:\&gt; notepad %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

The details that you need to add are the public IP address of your server, followed
by the domain you want to use to reach that server. Using the domains used in this
guide, and replacing your server IP for the your_server_IP text, your file should
look like this:
/etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 guest-desktop
your_server_IP your_domain_1
your_server_IP your_domain_2

This will direct any requests for your two domains on your computer and send them
to your server at the designated IP address.
Save and close the file.
Step 7 — Testing Your Results

Now that you have your virtual hosts configured, you can test your setup by going to
the domains that you configured in your web browser:
http:// your_domain_1

You can also visit your second host page and view the file you created for your
second site:
http:// your_domain_2
If both of these sites work as expected, you’ve successfully configured two virtual
hosts on the same server.
Note: If you adjusted your local computer’s hosts file, like in Step 6 of this tutorial,
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 no longer necessary.

Conclusion

You now have a single server handling two separate domain names. You can expand
this process by following the steps we outlined above to add additional virtual hosts.
There is no software limit on the number of domain names Apache can handle, so
feel free to make as many virtual hosts as your server is capable of handling.

Thanks for learning with the DigitalOcean Community. Check out our
offerings for compute, storage, networking, and managed databases.
Learn more about our products ->

About the authors

Kong Yang Author

Lisa Tagliaferri Author

 Still looking for an answer? Ask a question
Search for more help

Was this helpful? Yes No

Comments
4 Comments

Leave a comment...

This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials,
documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!
Sign In or Sign Up to Comment
Jordan Halvorsen
January 10, 2023
If you’re running into an issue with your second website redirecting to your
first website, just re-setup Let’s Encrypt with the following:
sudo certbot --apache
Once you install SSL for each domain then it will no long redirect.
Show replies Reply

oprisk1
August 9, 2022
The solution to the issue where two VHosts are individually defined but are
served by the same Vhost, maybe related to whether an “ssl certificate” has
been setup for apache2. In this situation all Vhosts must have “ssl certificates”
to have apache serve each vhost individually. The server defaults to the 443
port and the vhost without “ssl” will be served from the vhost with “ssl.”
Reply

oprisk1
August 8, 2022
Good article, but I have two questions.
1.
On the remote server setup with apache2, should the website directory
ownership (/var/www/vhost1/public_html) be modified instead to the apache
server (www-data:www-data) and not the current logged in user?
2.
I followed the article and created the entries for vhost1 and vhost2, each
associated with individual and seperate directories as outlined in the article.
However, without explanation, the URL for vhost2 points to vhost1. Do you
have insight what might be causing the issue?
The domains for vhost1 and vhost2 point to the same IP hosting the server
running apache2.
Reply
 Mustillo
April 30, 2022
So I’ve followed this command by command, for the past 2 weeks with no luck.
So visiting your_domain_2 will redirect me to your_domain_1. I’ve made the two
seperate folders, I’ve created and enabled the virtual hosts pointing to the
correct directories, I’ve dissabled 000-default etc.
Reply

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0

International License.

Get our biweekly newsletter

Sign up for Infrastructure as a Newsletter.

Sign up

Hollie's Hub for Good

Working on improving health and education, reducing inequality, and spurring

economic growth? We'd like to help.
Learn more
 Become a contributor

Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive
a matching donation.
Learn more

Featured Tutorials

Kubernetes Course Learn Python 3 Machine Learning in Python

Getting started with Go Intro to Kubernetes

DigitalOcean Products

Cloudways Virtual Machines Managed Databases Managed Kubernetes

Block Storage Object Storage Marketplace VPC Load Balancers

Welcome to the developer

cloud

DigitalOcean makes it simple to launch in

the cloud and scale up as you grow —
whether you're running one virtual
machine or ten thousand.
Learn more

Company
Products
Community
Solutions
Contact

© 2024 DigitalOcean, LLC. Sitemap. Cookie Preferences