i-am.ws

Saturday Jun 03, 2006

Apache Virtual Host

If you're like me and over the years you've collected a couple of domain names because at the time they were "way too cool", or when you're serving out of your basement the vacation pictures of a couple of friends, then Apache's "Virtual Host" is what you're looking for. What this web server option allows you to do is to have a single web server handle the traffic for multiple domains.

For this example let's assume you got (long time ago, when still available :) the domain name "www.myself.com". And now you claimed for your buddy the domain "www.myfriend.com". And let's also assume that you either have a static IP (probably not) or that your ISP is changing their DHCP leases very infrequently (probably yes). So you've managed to configure (with your registrar) your domain name to point to your current IP address '12.34.56.70'. Now go to the registrars web site for "myfriend.com" and (in the DNS section) let it point similarly to '12.34.56.70'.

In the following I'm configuring an Apache server on a Cobalt Qube. However, this works exactly the same on any other Apache server (on Linux). To start, create with the Cobalt's web interface a new user called 'friend'. If that worked as it should, you will be able to browse to your buddy's website by pointing your browser at http://12.34.56.70/~friend/. Probably you will just see the boring standard template page. To help with debugging create a different webpage by editing "/home/users/friend/web/index.html".

Now we're going to edit '/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf' (better save a copy first!!). At the bottom there is a VirtualHost section, but (at least with a Cobalt) it's all commented out. Leave that as it is, but add the following seven lines:

# VirtualHost: Allows the daemon to respond to requests for more than one
# server address, if your server machine is configured to accept IP packets
# for multiple addresses. This can be accomplished with the ifconfig
# alias flag, or through kernel patches like VIF.

<VirtualHost www.myfriend.com>
ServerName myfriend.com
ServerAlias www.myfriend.com
ServerAdmin my.friend@his.email.com
DocumentRoot /home/users/friend/web
TransferLog logs/myfriend-access_log
ErrorLog logs/myfriend-error_log
</VirtualHost>

The only important piece here is the 'DocumentRoot' parameter. You can point it to any place in your directory tree, but to make it the same as '.../~friend' does make sense. On some other platforms this will be '/home/friend/public_html/'. If you omit the two lines for logfiles, the logs for your friend will go to the same files as the rest of the web-server.

Now restart the web-server with "/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart" (on some other platforms this is "/etc/init.d/apache restart" or similar variants) or simply restart your computer. That done, point your browser to http://www.myfriend.com/ and you should see the page that you edited as '/home/users/friend/web/index.html'.

OK, you're ready to become a mini ISP. But be aware, if you've a standard residential fast Internet line, your ISP probably doesn't allow you to have a web-server in your basement!! On the other hand, they probably don't mind, as long as you keep it small-and-personal. Just a couple of pictures showing off the new house or baby, and probably nobody cares.

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