In this tutorial we will show you how to Setup Virtual Host Apache on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Apache Web Server is an open source Web server creation, deployment and management software. Initially developed by a group of software programmers, it is now maintained by the Apache Software Foundation. Apache is highly reliable, flexible, easy to install and ships numerous features which make it popular amongst developers and Linux enthusiasts.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo’ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step by step set up virtual host Apache on a Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa) server.
Setup Virtual Host Apache on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa
Step 1. First make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running these following apt commands in the terminal.
1 2 | sudoaptupdate sudoaptupgrade |
Next in this step, we will install Apache2 web server:
1 | sudoaptinstallapache2 |
Once done installing Apache services on your system, start all required services:
1 2 3 | systemctlenableapache2 systemctlstartapache2 systemctlstatusapache2 |
Now we can add the firewall rules for Apache:
1 2 | sudoufwallowin"Apache Full" sudoufwenable |
Now you need to test if Apache is properly installed and can serve web pages. Open a web browser and use the following URL to access the Apache Default Page:
1 2 3 | http://Your_SERVER_IP_ADDRESS/ OR http://localhost/ |
The document root is the directory in which the website files for a domain name are stored and served in response to requests. We will use the following directory structure:
1 2 3 4 5 | /var/www/ ├──your-domain-example1.com │ └──public_html ├──your-domain-example2.com │ └──public_html |
Now creating the root directory for the domain your-domain-example.com:
1 | sudomkdir-p/var/www/your-domain-example.com/public_html |
After that, set permission and ownership of the domain document root directory and all files within the directory to the Apache user:
1 | sudochown-Rwww-data:/var/www/your-domain-example.com/public_html |
Then, create an index.html file inside the domain’s document root directory:
1 | sudonano/var/www/your-domain-example.com/public_html/index.html |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | <!DOCTYPEhtml> <htmllang="en"dir="ltr"> <head> <metacharset="utf-8"> <title>Welcometoyour-domain-example.com</title> </head> <body> <h1>Success!your-domain-example.comhomepage!</h1> </body> </html> |
On Ubuntu, Apache Virtual Hosts configuration files are located in /etc/apache2/sites-available directory and can be enabled by creating symbolic links to the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled directory, which is read by Apache during the startup:
1 | nano/etc/apache2/sites-available/your-domain-example2.com.conf |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | <!DOCTYPEhtml> <htmllang="en"dir="ltr"> <head> <metacharset="utf-8"> <title>Welcometoexample.com</title> </head> <body> <h1>Success!example.comhomepage!</h1> </body> </html> |
To enable the new virtual host file, use the a2ensite helper script which creates a symbolic link from the virtual host file to the sites-enabled directory:
1 | sudoa2ensiteyour-domain-example2.com |
Test and restart Apache:
1 | sudoapachectlconfigtest |
If there are no errors, you will see the following output:
1 | SyntaxOK |
To activate a newly created virtual host, restart the Apache service with:
1 | sudosystemctlreloadapache2 |
Now that you have your virtual hosts configured, you can test your setup easily by going to the domains that you configured in your web browser:
1 | http://your-domain-example2.com |
Congratulation’s! You have successfully installed Apache. Thanks for using this tutorial set up virtual hosts Apache web server on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Apache website.
