How to Setup Apache Virtual Host on Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 LTS

In this article, We are going to perform How to setup Apache Virtual Host on Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 LTS or any other cloud platform like Amazon EC2, Azure VM, Google Cloud Compute, etc. with preinstalled Ubuntu OS.

Introduction:

Apache is one of most used free and open source web server software which is used to run web applications, around 40% websites uses Apache web server.

What is Apache Virtual Host

Apache virtual host is used to run more than one website on Single Instance/Server/Virtual Machine using virtual host/vhost configuration file.

There are two types of Virtual Host.

  • Name Based Virtual Host
  • IP Based Virtual Host

Name Based Virtual Host: It is used to host multiple website on a single IP Address.

IP Based Virtual Host: It is used to used to host multiple websites on different IP Address.

Prerequisite:

  • Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 LTS with Minimal Installation
  • SSH Access with sudo privileges
  • Open Firewall Port: 80,443

Update the system package

sudo apt-get update

Install Apache2 on Ubuntu

We have to install apache2 package to setup Apache virtual host. Run below command to install apache2 on Ubuntu.

sudo apt-get install apache2

Create a Project Directory Structure

By default Apache run “index” page from /var/www/html directory, if you want to run single website in Apache web server you can copy your project code in /var/www/html directory OR you can create directory as per your domain/project.

Here we are creating Project directory to store domain/website files.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/test.fosstechnix.com/public_html

Creating Simple index.html file for testing

For testing create a simple index.html file

sudo nano /var/www/test.fosstechnix.com/public_html/index.html

Paste the below lines

<html>
        <head>
           <meta charset="utf-8">
             <title>Welcome to test.fosstechnix.com</title>
       </head>
          <body>
               <h1>This is Testing Page</h1>
          </body>
</html>

Next change the permission domain root directory to www-data Apache user.

sudo chown -R www-data: /var/www/test.fosstechnix.com/public_html/

Setup Apache Virtual Host on Ubuntu

By default Apache Host configuration are stored in /etc/apache2/sites-available directory with .conf file extension and enabled by creating symbolic link to /etc/apache2/sites-enabled directory.

Open your favorite editor and create the virtual host configuration file.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/test.fosstechnix.com.conf

Paste the below configuration file

<VirtualHost *:80>

        ServerAdmin [email protected]

        ServerName test.fosstechnix.com

        ServerAlias test.fosstechnix.com

        DocumentRoot /var/www/test.fosstechnix.com/public_html/

                <Directory /var/www/test.fosstechnix.com/public_html/>

                 Order allow,deny

                Allow from all

                Require all granted

                Options FollowSymLinks

                AllowOverride All

       </Directory>

       </VirtualHost>

Enable the virtual host configuration

sudo a2ensite test.fosstechnix.com.conf

To verify the syntax

sudo apachectl configtest

Output:

Syntax OK

Reload the Apache service

sudo systemctl reload apache2

Restart the apache2 service to take effect

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Testing the Virtual Host

To test virtual host file, Open /etc/hosts file add server IP and domain name OR if you have purchased domain name from domain provider like GoDaddy, namecheap, etc., then add A record with domain name and Server IP.

sudo nano /etc/hosts
....

192.168.100.51 test.fosstechnix.com

....

Open your favorite browser and type the domain name, you will see index.html web page

http://test.fosstechnix.com

If you are seeing index web page, then we have successfully performed setup Apache virtual host on Ubuntu.

Redirect HTTP to HTTPS in Apache using Virtual Host

It is recommended to secure your domain using secure protocol and SSL certificate. Here we are redirecting http to https in apache using virtual host and adding SSL certificates.

First create a directory where you will add SSL certificates, here we are coping SSL certificates in /var/www/ssl directory

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/ssl

Add the below highlighted lines in virtual host configuration if you have already created virtual host like above

<VirtualHost *:80>

        ServerAdmin [email protected]

        ServerName test.fosstechnix.com

        ServerAlias test.fosstechnix.com

        Document Root /var/www/test.fosstechnix.com/public_html/

        Redirect / https:// test.fosstechnix.com /

        <Directory /var/www/test.fosstechnix.com/public_html/>

                 Order allow,deny

                Allow from all

                Require all granted

                Options FollowSymLinks

                AllowOverride All

       </Directory>

       RewriteEngine On

       RewriteCond %{HTTPS} Off

       RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>

        ServerName test.fosstechnix.com

        ServerAlias test.fosstechnix.com

        SSLEngine On

        SSLCertificateFile /var/www/ssl/60a18ab0a4ef3259.crt

        SSLCertificateKeyFile /var/www/ssl/*.fosstechnix.com.key

        DocumentRoot /var/www/test.fosstechnix.com/public_html/

        <Directory /var/www/test.fosstechnix.com/public_html/>

               Order allow,deny

               Allow from all

               Require all granted

               AllowOverride All

       </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

After adding below configuration enable SSL and rewrite modules to redirect http to https.

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod ssl

To verify the syntax

sudo apachectl configtest

Output:

Syntax OK

Reload the Apache service

sudo systemctl reload apache2

Restart the apache2 service to take effect

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Open your favorite browser and access your URL using https.

https://test.fosstechnix.com

Start/Stop/Restart/Enable Apache2 Service

sudo systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl stop apache2
sudo systemctl restart apache2
sudo systemctl enable apache2

Error: Invalid command ‘SSLEngine’, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration, Action ‘configtest’ failed.

Error: Invalid command ‘RewriteEngine’, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration,

Conclusion

In this article, We have covered How to setup Apache Virtual Host on Ubuntu and Redirect HTTP to HTTPS in Apache using Virtual Host.

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