The Apache HTTP Server's built in virtual hosting allows the server to provide
different information based on which IP address, hostname, or port is
being requested. A complete guide to using virtual hosts is available
online at https://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/vhosts/.
To create a name-based virtual host, it is best to use the virtual
host container provided in httpd.conf as an
example.
The virtual host example read as follows:
#NameVirtualHost *:80
#
#<VirtualHost *:80>
# ServerAdmin [email protected]
# DocumentRoot /www/docs/dummy-host.example.com
# ServerName dummy-host.example.com
# ErrorLog logs/dummy-host.example.com-error_log
# CustomLog logs/dummy-host.example.com-access_log common
#</VirtualHost> |
To activate name-based virtual hosting, uncomment the
NameVirtualHost line by removing the hash mark
(#) and replace the asterisk (*)
with the IP address assigned to the machine.
Next, configure a virtual host by uncommenting and customizing the
<VirtualHost> container.
On the <VirtualHost> line, change the
asterisk (*) to the server's IP
address. Change the ServerName to a
valid DNS name assigned to the machine, and
configure the other directives as necessary.
The <VirtualHost> container is highly
customizable and accepts almost every directive available within the
main server configuration.
 | Tip |
|---|
| | If configuring a virtual host to listen on a non-default port, that
port must be added to the Listen directive in the
global settings section of
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file.
|
To activate a newly created virtual host, the Apache HTTP Server must be reloaded
or restarted. Refer to Section 10.4 Starting and Stopping httpd for
further instructions.
Comprehensive information about creating and configuring both
name-based and IP address-based virtual hosts is provided online at
https://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/vhosts/.
By default, the Apache HTTP Server is configured as both a non-secure and a
secure server. Both the non-secure and secure servers use the same IP
address and hostname, but listen on different ports: 80 and 443
respectively. This enables both non-secure and secure communications
to take place simultaneously.
One aspect of SSL enhanced HTTP transmissions is that they are more
resource intensive than the standard HTTP protocol, so a secure server
cannot serve as many pages per second. For this reason, it is often a
good idea to minimize the information available from the secure
server, especially on a high traffic website.
 | Important |
|---|
| | Do not use name-based virtual hosts in conjunction with a secure Web
server as the SSL handshake occurs before the HTTP request identifies
the appropriate name-based virtual host. Name-based virtual hosts only
work with the non-secure Web server.
|
The configuration directives for the secure server are contained
within virtual host tags in the
/etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf file.
By default, both the secure and the non-secure Web servers share the
same DocumentRoot. It is recommended that a different
DocumentRoot be made available for the secure Web
server.
To stop the non-secure Web server from accepting connections, comment
out the line in httpd.conf which reads
Listen 80 by placing a hash mark
(#) at the beginning of the line. When finished,
the line looks like the following example:
For more information on configuring an SSL enhanced Web server, refer
to the chapter titled Apache HTTP Secure Server
Configuration in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Administration Guide. For
advanced configuration tips, refer to the Apache Software Foundation
documentation available online at the following URLs:
