Setting Up Apache Virtual Hosts

What are Virtual Hosts?

Virtual hosts allow Apache to serve multiple websites from a single server. Each site gets its own configuration with its own domain, document root, and settings.

Create a Virtual Host

Create /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/public

    <Directory /var/www/example.com/public>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com-error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Enable the Site

# Create document root
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.com/public
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/example.com

# Enable site and reload
sudo a2ensite example.com.conf
sudo apache2ctl configtest
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Disable Default Site

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Enable Common Modules

sudo a2enmod rewrite   # URL rewriting (.htaccess)
sudo a2enmod ssl       # HTTPS support
sudo a2enmod headers   # Security headers
sudo a2enmod deflate   # Compression
sudo systemctl restart apache2