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<manualpage metafile="examples.xml.meta">
<parentdocument href="./">Virtual Hosts</parentdocument>
<title>VirtualHost Examples</title>
<summary>
<p>This document attempts to answer the commonly-asked questions about
web sites running on a single server, via <a
href="ip-based.html">IP-based</a> virtual hosts.
</p>
</summary>
<section id="purename"><title>Running several name-based web
sites on a single IP address.</title>
<p>Your server has multiple hostnames that resolve to a single address,
<note><title>Note</title><p>Creating virtual
host configurations on your Apache server does not magically
cause DNS entries to be created for those host names. You
<em>must</em> have the names in DNS, resolving to your IP
address, or nobody else will be able to see your web site. You
can put entries in your <code>hosts</code> file for local
testing, but that will work only from the machine with those
<code>hosts</code> entries.</p>
</note>
<highlight language="config">
# Ensure that Apache listens on port 80
Listen 80
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.example.com
# Other directives here
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.example.org
# Other directives here
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
<p>The asterisks match all addresses, so the main server serves no
requests. Due to the fact that the virtual host with
in the configuration file, it has the highest priority and can be seen
as the <cite>default</cite> or <cite>primary</cite> server. That means
that if a request is received that does not match one of the specified
<code>ServerName</code> directives, it will be served by this first
<code>VirtualHost</code>.</p>
<p>The above configuration is what you will want to use in almost
all name-based virtual hosting situations. The only thing that this
configuration will not work for, in fact, is when you are serving
different content based on differing IP addresses or ports.</p>
<note>
<title>Note</title>
<p>You may replace <code>*</code> with a specific IP address
on the system. Such virtual hosts will only be used for
HTTP requests received on connection to the specified IP
address.</p>
<p>However, it is additionally useful to use <code>*</code>
on systems where the IP address is not predictable - for
example if you have a dynamic IP address with your ISP, and
you are using some variety of dynamic DNS solution. Since
<code>*</code> matches any IP address, this configuration
would work without changes whenever your IP address
changes.</p>
</note>
</section>
<section id="twoips"><title>Name-based hosts on more than one
IP address.</title>
<note>
<title>Note</title>
<p>Any of the techniques discussed here can be extended to any
number of IP addresses.</p>
</note>
<p>The server has two IP addresses. On one (<code>172.20.30.40</code>), we
other (<code>172.20.30.50</code>), we will serve two or more virtual hosts.</p>
<highlight language="config">
Listen 80
# This is the "main" server running on 172.20.30.40
ServerName server.example.com
DocumentRoot "/www/mainserver"
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.50>
ServerName www.example.com
# Other directives here ...
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.50>
ServerName www.example.org
# Other directives here ...
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
<p>Any request to an address other than <code>172.20.30.50</code> will be
served from the main server. A request to <code>172.20.30.50</code> with an
unknown hostname, or no <code>Host:</code> header, will be served from
</section>
<section id="intraextra"><title>Serving the same content on
different IP addresses (such as an internal and external
address).</title>
<p>The server machine has two IP addresses (<code>192.168.1.1</code>
and <code>172.20.30.40</code>). The machine is sitting between an
internal (intranet) network and an external (internet) network. Outside
the external address (<code>172.20.30.40</code>), but inside the
network, that same name resolves to the internal address
(<code>192.168.1.1</code>).</p>
<p>The server can be made to respond to internal and external requests
with the same content, with just one <code>VirtualHost</code>
section.</p>
<highlight language="config">
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.1 172.20.30.40>
ServerName server.example.com
ServerAlias server
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
<p>Now requests from both networks will be served from the same
<code>VirtualHost</code>.</p>
<note>
<title>Note:</title><p>On the internal
network, one can just use the name <code>server</code> rather
than the fully qualified host name
<p>Note also that, in the above example, you can replace the list
of IP addresses with <code>*</code>, which will cause the server to
respond the same on all addresses.</p>
</note>
</section>
<section id="port"><title>Running different sites on different
ports.</title>
<p>You have multiple domains going to the same IP and also want to
serve multiple ports. The example below illustrates that the name-matching
takes place after the best matching IP address and port combination
is determined.</p>
<highlight language="config">
Listen 80
Listen 8080
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40:80>
ServerName www.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40:8080>
ServerName www.example.com
DocumentRoot "/www/domain-8080"
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40:80>
ServerName www.example.org
DocumentRoot "/www/otherdomain-80"
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40:8080>
ServerName www.example.org
DocumentRoot "/www/otherdomain-8080"
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
</section>
<section id="ip"><title>IP-based virtual hosting</title>
<p>The server has two IP addresses (<code>172.20.30.40</code> and
<code>172.20.30.50</code>) which resolve to the names
respectively.</p>
<highlight language="config">
Listen 80
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40>
ServerName www.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.50>
ServerName www.example.org
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
<p>Requests for any address not specified in one of the
<code><VirtualHost></code> directives (such as
<code>localhost</code>, for example) will go to the main server, if
there is one.</p>
</section>
<section id="ipport"><title>Mixed port-based and ip-based virtual
hosts</title>
<p>The server machine has two IP addresses (<code>172.20.30.40</code> and
<code>172.20.30.50</code>) which resolve to the names
respectively. In each case, we want to run hosts on ports 80 and
8080.</p>
<highlight language="config">
Listen 172.20.30.40:80
Listen 172.20.30.40:8080
Listen 172.20.30.50:80
Listen 172.20.30.50:8080
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40:80>
DocumentRoot "/www/example1-80"
ServerName www.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40:8080>
DocumentRoot "/www/example1-8080"
ServerName www.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.50:80>
DocumentRoot "/www/example2-80"
ServerName www.example.org
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.50:8080>
DocumentRoot "/www/example2-8080"
ServerName www.example.org
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
</section>
<section id="mixed"><title>Mixed name-based and IP-based
vhosts</title>
<p>Any address mentioned in the argument to a virtualhost that never
appears in another virtual host is a strictly IP-based virtual host.</p>
<highlight language="config">
Listen 80
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40>
ServerName www.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40>
ServerName www.example.org
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40>
ServerName www.example.net
</VirtualHost>
# IP-based
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.50>
ServerName www.example.edu
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.60>
ServerName www.example.gov
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
</section>
<section id="proxy"><title>Using <code>Virtual_host</code> and
mod_proxy together</title>
<p>The following example allows a front-end machine to proxy a
virtual host through to a server running on another machine. In the
example, a virtual host of the same name is configured on a machine
at <code>192.168.111.2</code>. The <directive
module="mod_proxy" name="ProxyPreserveHost">ProxyPreserveHost
On</directive> directive is used so that the desired hostname is
passed through, in case we are proxying multiple hostnames to a
single machine.</p>
<highlight language="config">
<VirtualHost *:*>
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass "/" "http://192.168.111.2/"
ProxyPassReverse "/" "http://192.168.111.2/"
ServerName hostname.example.com
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
</section>
<section id="default"><title>Using <code>_default_</code>
vhosts</title>
<section id="defaultallports"><title><code>_default_</code> vhosts
for all ports</title>
<p>Catching <em>every</em> request to any unspecified IP address and
any other virtual host.</p>
<highlight language="config">
<VirtualHost _default_:*>
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
<p>Using such a default vhost with a wildcard port effectively prevents
any request going to the main server.</p>
<p>A default vhost never serves a request that was sent to an
contained an unknown or no <code>Host:</code> header it is always
served from the primary name-based vhost (the vhost for that
<p>You can use <directive module="mod_alias">AliasMatch</directive> or
<directive module="mod_rewrite">RewriteRule</directive> to rewrite any
request to a single information page (or script).</p>
</section>
<section id="defaultdifferentports"><title><code>_default_</code> vhosts
for different ports</title>
<p>Same as setup 1, but the server listens on several ports and we want
to use a second <code>_default_</code> vhost for port 80.</p>
<highlight language="config">
<VirtualHost _default_:80>
# ...
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost _default_:*>
# ...
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
<p>The default vhost for port 80 (which <em>must</em> appear before any
default vhost with a wildcard port) catches all requests that were sent
to an unspecified IP address. The main server is never used to serve a
request.</p>
</section>
<section id="defaultoneport"><title><code>_default_</code> vhosts
for one port</title>
<p>We want to have a default vhost for port 80, but no other default
vhosts.</p>
<highlight language="config">
<VirtualHost _default_:80>
...
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
<p>A request to an unspecified address on port 80 is served from the
default vhost. Any other request to an unspecified address and port is
served from the main server.</p>
<p>Any use of <code>*</code> in a virtual host declaration will have
higher precedence than <code>_default_</code>.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="migrate"><title>Migrating a name-based vhost to an
IP-based vhost</title>
<p>The name-based vhost with the hostname
href="#name">name-based</a> example, setup 2) should get its own IP
address. To avoid problems with name servers or proxies who cached the
old IP address for the name-based vhost we want to provide both
variants during a migration phase.</p>
<p>
The solution is easy, because we can simply add the new IP address
(<code>172.20.30.50</code>) to the <code>VirtualHost</code>
directive.</p>
<highlight language="config">
Listen 80
ServerName www.example.com
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40 172.20.30.50>
ServerName www.example.org
# ...
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40>
ServerName www.example.net
ServerAlias *.example.net
# ...
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
<p>The vhost can now be accessed through the new address (as an
IP-based vhost) and through the old address (as a name-based
vhost).</p>
</section>
<section id="serverpath"><title>Using the <code>ServerPath</code>
directive</title>
<p>We have a server with two name-based vhosts. In order to match the
correct virtual host a client must send the correct <code>Host:</code>
no clue what vhost the client tried to reach (and serves the request
from the primary vhost). To provide as much backward compatibility as
possible we create a primary vhost which returns a single page
containing links with an URL prefix to the name-based virtual
hosts.</p>
<highlight language="config">
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40>
# primary vhost
RewriteEngine On
# ...
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40>
ServerName www.sub1.domain.tld
ServerPath /sub1/
RewriteEngine On
# ...
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 172.20.30.40>
ServerName www.sub2.domain.tld
ServerPath /sub2/
RewriteEngine On
# ...
</VirtualHost>
</highlight>
<p>Due to the <directive module="core">ServerPath</directive>
directive a request to the URL
from the sub1-vhost.<br /> A request to the URL
served from the sub1-vhost if the client sent a correct
<code>Host:</code> header. If no <code>Host:</code> header is sent the
client gets the information page from the primary host.</p>
<p>Please note that there is one oddity: A request to
sub1-vhost if the client sent no <code>Host:</code> header.</p>
<p>The <directive module="mod_rewrite">RewriteRule</directive> directives
are used to make sure that a client which sent a correct
with or without URL prefix.</p>
</section>
</manualpage>