Virtual Hosting is a method of hosting numerous domain names on a server using a single IP address. This is particularly helpful to individuals who need to run a several sites on one virtual private server. There is no restriction to the number of virtual hosts that can be added to a VPS.

See Also:

There are 3 types of Virtual Web Hosting possible in Apache:

Port Based Virtual Web Hosting:

The default port number for HTTP is 80. We can configure web servers on almost any port number, provided the port number is not in use by any other program on the server.

Steps to configure a port based web hosting

Before creating an virtual host, you need to create document root where you will keep the new website’s information.

# mkdir /home/multiple-one 
# mkdir /home/multiple-one

Create a sample index file for testing purpose in both document root.

# cd /home/multiple-one
# vi index.html

<h1> PORT BASED WEB HOSTING <h1>
#### Welcome to Multiple-One ####

# cd /home/multiple-two
# vim index.html

<h1> PORT BASED WEB HOSTING <h1>
#### Welcome to Multiple-Two ####

Now Edit the apache configuration file and make the below changes.

# vim /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

(Search for the “Listen 80” by using “/” and paste your port under it)

Listen 80
Listen 81
Listen 8080

Add the below lines at the end of the page:

<VirtualHost *:81>
    ServerAdmin dennis.r@techoism.com
    DocumentRoot /home/multiple-one
    ServerName www.multiple-one.com
    ErrorLog logs/www.multiple-one.com-error_log
    CustomLog logs/www.multiple-one.com-access_log common
<Directory "/home/multiple-one">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:8080>
    ServerAdmin dennis.r@techoism.com
    DocumentRoot /home/multiple-two
    ServerName www.multiple-two.com
    ErrorLog logs/www.multiple-two.com-error_log
    CustomLog logs/www.multiple-two.com-access_log common
<Directory "/home/multiple-two">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Now restrat apache webservice.

For CentOS/RHEL 5/6
# /etc/init.d/httpd restart
For CentOS/RHEL 7
# systemctl restart httpd

Now you can verify the configuration on your browser by running below domain:

http://www.multiple-one.com:81/

http://www.multiple-two.com:8080/

Name Based Virtual Web Hosting:

With the name based virtual hosts you can hostare multiple website on same server with a single IP. All the domains on that server will share single IP.

Steps to configure a port based web hosting

Before creating an virtual host, you need to create document root where you will keep the new website’s information.

# mkdir /home/namebase/dennis
# mkdir /home/namebase/andre

Create a sample index file for testing purpose in both document root.

# cd /home/namebase/dennis
# vi index.html

<h1> NAME BASED WEB HOSTING <h1>
#### Welcome Dennis ####

# cd /home/namebase/andre
# vi index.html

<h1> NAME BASED WEB HOSTING <h1>
#### Welcome Andre ####

Now Edit the apache configuration file and make the below changes.

# vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Add the below lines at the end of the page:

<VirtualHost 192.168.5.219:80>
    ServerAdmin dennis.r@techoism.com
    DocumentRoot /home/namebase/dennis
    ServerName dennis.namebase.com
    ErrorLog logs/dennis.namebase.com-error_log
    CustomLog logs/dennis.namebase.com-access_log common
<Directory "/home/namebase/dennis">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 192.168.5.219:80>
    ServerAdmin dennis.r@techoism.com
    DocumentRoot /home/namebase/andre
    ServerName andre.namebase.com
    ErrorLog logs/andre.namebase.com-error_log
    CustomLog logs/andre.namebase.com-access_log common
<Directory "/home/namebase/andre">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Search for NameVirtualHost in the httpd.conf file and add the below line

NameVirtualHost 192.168.5.219:80

Now restrat apache webservice.

For CentOS/RHEL 5/6
# /etc/init.d/httpd restart
For CentOS/RHEL 7
# systemctl restart httpd

Now you can verify the configuration on your browser by running below domain:

http://dennis.namebase.com/

http://andre.namebase.com/

IP Based Virtual Web Hosting:

To setup IP based virtual hosting, you must have more than one IP address assigned to your server or your Linux machine.

Steps to configure a IP based web hosting

If you have single NIC card you can create network configuration file like ifcfg-eth0:1, ifcfg-eth0:2, ifcfg-eth0:3 and so on. You can also attached multiple NIC Cards.

# ifconfig

Sample Output

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:29:EE:F1:3D
          inet addr:192.168.5.219  Bcast:192.168.5.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:feee:f13d/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:65 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:55 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:7512 (7.3 KiB)  TX bytes:7737 (7.5 KiB)
		  
eth0:1    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:29:EE:F1:3D  
          inet addr:192.168.5.220  Bcast:192.168.5.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:76 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:76 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:6604 (6.4 KiB)  TX bytes:6604 (6.4 KiB)

Now creating an virtual host, you need to create document root where you will keep the new website’s information.

# mkdir /home/namebase/dennis
# mkdir /home/namebase/andre

Create a sample index file for testing purpose in both document root.

# cd /home/namebase/dennis
# vi index.html

<h1> IP BASED WEB HOSTING <h1>
#### Welcome Dennis ####

# cd /home/namebase/andre
# vi index.html

<h1> IP BASED WEB HOSTING <h1>
#### Welcome Andre ####

Now Edit the apache configuration file and make the below changes.

# vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Add the below lines at the end of the page:

<VirtualHost 192.168.5.219:80>
    ServerAdmin dennis.r@techoism.com
    DocumentRoot /home/namebase/dennis
    ServerName dennis.namebase.com
    ErrorLog logs/dennis.namebase.com-error_log
    CustomLog logs/dennis.namebase.com-access_log common
<Directory "/home/namebase/dennis">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 192.168.5.220:80>
    ServerAdmin dennis.r@techoism.com
    DocumentRoot /home/namebase/andre
    ServerName andre.namebase.com
    ErrorLog logs/andre.namebase.com-error_log
    CustomLog logs/andre.namebase.com-access_log common
<Directory "/home/namebase/andre">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Search for NameVirtualHost in the httpd.conf file and add the below line

NameVirtualHost 192.168.5.219:80

Now restrat apache webservice.

For CentOS/RHEL 5/6
# /etc/init.d/httpd restart
For CentOS/RHEL 7
# systemctl restart httpd

Now you can verify the configuration on your browser by running below domain:

http://dennis.namebase.com/

http://andre.namebase.com/

Enjoy it!