Hi Guys,

I have recently been looking around at peoples problems with Apache, and the most common problem I notice is multiple virtual hosts on one single server.

I will give a very simple, and thorough tutorial below, which I hope should enlighten simple problems which nobody has addressed.

Before we start i am assuming the following:

* You are running Ubuntu 11.04.
* You are installing Apache2.
* You have two domain names pointed to your DNS/IP addresses.

Now let's start off by installing Apache2.

Code:
sudo apt-get install apache2
This will install apache2 on the server inside the /etc/apache2 directory.

And now all you want to do is have the following:

* /var/www/domain1.com/
* /var/www/domain2.com/
* and so on?

Well first of all i suggest the following:

* /var/www/domain1.com/dev/ -> Development site!
* /var/www/domain1.com/stage/ -> Staging / UAT
* /var/www/domain1.com/logs/ -> Logs from apache/php etc.
* /var/www/domain1.com/prod/ -> Live/Production site (doc root)
* /var/www/domain1.com/prod/cgi-bin/ -> CGI Dir for live site!

Now when you enter "www.domain.com" this will goto the /var/www/domain1.com/prod/ directory! you can then set-up sub-domains and HTTP authenticate them to restrict access to your development and staging environments.

Anyway, let's create our site directories.

Code:
sudo mkdir /var/www/domain1.com /var/www/domain1.com/dev  /var/www/domain1.com/stage  /var/www/domain1.com/prod  /var/www/domain1.com/logs
After the directories are created, create 2 index files (for testing purposes).

Code:
sudo vi /var/www/domain1.com/prod/index.htm
Entire some text, and save this (so you know it website 1).

Repeat this step replacing domain1.com to your second domain name.

Right, now we just need to get Apache to work, first I will explain the common error people are faced with,
normally an error something along the lines of "NameVirtualHost *:80 has no Virtual Hosts" this is a quick fix.

Code:
sudo vi /etc/apache2/ports.conf
And you see this line:

Code:
NameVirtialHosts *:80
Listen 80
Make this look like...

Code:
NameVirtualHosts *
Listen 80
Simply removing the ":80" from the end of that one line.

And now you need to set-up your apache config per site, using the site-availabled and sites-enabled.

first goto your sites-available and...

Code:
sudo cp default domain1.co.uk
delete the contents and replace with the following...

Code:
#
# /etc/apache2/sites-available/domain1.com
#
<VirtualHost *>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
        ServerName  www.domain1.com
        ServerAlias domain1.com

        # Indexes + Directory Root.
        DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
        DocumentRoot /var/www/domain1.com/prod/

        # CGI Directory
        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/www/domain1.com/prod/cgi-bin
        <Location /cgi-bin>
                Options +ExecCGI
        </Location>


        # Logfiles
        ErrorLog  /var/www/domain1.com/logs/error.log
        CustomLog /var/www/domain1.co/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
And save this file. Then copy this file for domain2.com/.co.uk

After this, you need to enable them, using symlinks, despite apache having features for this,
allow me to show you the correct way of sym linking.

Code:
sudo ln -s domain1.com ../sites-enabled/domain1.com
sudo ln -s domain2.com ../sites-enabled/domain2.com
Finally,

Code:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
And your websites should be working correctly .

I understand the tutorial isn't 100% perfect, and may not thoroughly explain certain areas, however I feel the above is enough for you to understand and get multiple virtual hosts on one single server. If you have any questions or suggestions i'll be happy to answer/elaborate on them.

I hope this helps!