How to Create a Virtual Host in Apache 2.4

In this article, I will show you, how you can create a Virtual host in Apache 2.4 and point multiples domain in a single server. The whole example assumes that you are using Amazon Linux 1 as the server operating system. If you are using a different system, then please check out my other articles on different Linux OS.

What is Virtual Hosting

Before we start, let’s discuss what is Virtual hosting. Virtual hosting is a method for hosting multiple domain names (with separate handling of each name) on a single server (or pool of servers). This allows one server to share its resources, such as memory and processor cycles, without requiring all services provided to use the same hostname. The term virtual hosting is usually used in reference to web servers but the principles do carry over to other Internet services.

How to Create A Virtual Host in Apache 2.4

At first, please login to your server using putty or terminal. Then finish the installation of Apache 2.4 by Running this command.

sudo yum install httpd24 -y

This command will install Apache 2.4 into your Amazon Linux machine. After you have successfully installed the Apache 2.4, then create a folder named “aws” in “/var/www” directory. To create a new folder please run this command.

sudo mkdir /var/www/aws

Set the folder permission to 0775 by running this command.

sudo chmod 0775 /var/www/aws 

After that, run the following command to open the Virtual Host configuration file.

sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/vhost.conf

In my examples I always use VI as the editor, if you use different editor then adjust the command accordingly.

After you have opened the file, please paste the following content over there. I assumed the domain name to be awswithatiq.com. Please replace it with your own domain / subdomain.

<VirtualHost *:80>

  # REQUIRED. Set this to the host/domain/subdomain that
  # you want this VirtualHost record to handle.

  ServerName awswithatiq.com

  # Optional. You can specify additional host names that
  # serve up the same site. This can be top-level, domains,
  # sub-domains, and can even use wildcard subdomains such
  # as *.yourdomain.com - just separate each host name
  # with a single space.

  ServerAlias www.awswithatiq.com

  # REQUIRED. Set this to the directory you want to use for
  # this vhost site's files.

  DocumentRoot /var/www/aws

  # Optional. Uncomment this and set it to your admin email
  # address, if you have one. If there is a server error,
  # this is the address that Apache will show to users.

  ServerAdmin [email protected]

  # Optional. Uncomment this if you want to specify
  # a different error log file than the default. You will
  # need to create the error file first.

  #ErrorLog /var/www/vhosts/logs/error_log

  # REQUIRED. Let's make sure that .htaccess files work on 
  # this site. Don't forget to change the file path to
  # match your DocumentRoot setting above.
  
  <Directory /var/www/aws>
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

Once you pasted the content, then save the file and and restart the apache server to take effect.

sudo service httpd restart 

If you have reached so far without any error, then conjuration for setting up your first Virtual Host. I hope you enjoyed it 🙂