Virtual hosts (vhosts) are used to serve multiple domains by using a single server or Internet Protocol (IP) address. Different pages are displayed according to what has been set in the host file for that particular site. You can add as many virtual hosts as you need to your server. This article provides instructions for creating vhosts on CentOS® specifically.

Note: Replace any instance of domain.com in this article with the domain name of your site.

Vhost configuration prerequisites for CentOS

This article assumes that you have configured the Domain Name Services (DNS) for your domain to point to your site or that you are using a local hosts file on your computer to point the domain to the server for testing purposes.

Your server must have Apache® installed in order to configure vhosts. Install Apache by running the following command:

sudo yum install httpd

Note: Verify the firewall on your server is configured to allow HTTP traffic on port 80.

Create a vhost directory on CentOS

1. Create a new directory by using the following command:

   sudo mkdir -p /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/public_html
   

   This directory is used to store the web content for your site. This is known as the Document Root location in the Apache vhost configuration file. Using -p automatically adds the parents of your new directory.

2. Set the necessary permissions on the new directory by using the following command:

    sudo chown -R username:vhostuser /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/public_html
   

   Note: Replace vhostuser in username:vhostuser with the user that should have access to the new directory.

Grant read access to everyone for the files within your vhosts directory by using the following:

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/vhosts/

Configure the virtual host file

1. Open the httpd.conf file in the vi text editor by using the following command:

   sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

2. Insert the following line at the end of the file:

   Include vhost.d/*.conf

   This action sets Apache to read all files ending in .conf within the /etc/httpd/vhost.d directory.

3. Save and exit the configuration file.

4. Create the directory for the vhost configuration files by using the following command:

   sudo mkdir /etc/httpd/vhost.d/

5. Create a vhost template from which you can make future virtual hosts by using the following command:

   touch /etc/httpd/vhost.d/default.template

6. Open the default.template file in vi by using the following command:

   vi /etc/httpd/vhost.d/default.template

7. Insert the following code within the /etc/httpd/vhost.d/default.template file:

   <VirtualHost *:80>

    ServerName domain.com
   
    ServerAlias www.domain.com
   
    DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/public_html
   
    <Directory /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/public_html>
   
             Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
   
             AllowOverride All
   
     </Directory>
   

   CustomLog /var/log/httpd/domain.com-access.log combined

   ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/domain.com-error.log
   # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,

     # alert, emerg.
   
     LogLevel warn
   

   #

   ServerName example.com

   DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/public_html

   <Directory /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/public_html>

   Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

   AllowOverride All

   CustomLog /var/log/httpd/example.com-ssl-access.log combined

   ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/example.com-ssl-error.log

       # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
   
       # alert, emerg.
   

   LogLevel warn

   SSLEngine on

   SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/domain.crt

   SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/certs/domain.key

   #

8. Save the changes to the file and exit vi.

Create the vhost file and restart the Apache service

1. Create the vhost file within the /etc/httpd/vhost.d directory by using the following command:

   sudo cp /etc/httpd/vhost.d/default.template /etc/httpd/vhost.d/domain.com.conf

2. Open the domain.com.conf file in vi by using the following command:

   sudo vi /etc/httpd/vhost.d/domain.com.conf

3. Save the changes to the file and exit vi.

4. Restart Apache by running the following command:

      sudo service httpd restart
   

   You receive the following message:

       Stopping httpd:                                                                                                [OK]
       Starting httpd: httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000 for ServerName
                                                                                                                      [OK]
   

   This is a default warning that you can ignore.

Your virtual host is now set up and ready to use. You must upload web content to the DocumentRoot directory that you have created on your server to have content served when you navigate to your domain name using a browser.