virtual host

Adding a Virtual Host allows us to access a web directory on our web browser using a path other that http://localhost or http://127.0.0.1. like http://shantanu/  or http://ba-ba-black-sheep/

 Open up a terminal and type the following :

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available/

sudo touch ba-ba-black-sheep.conf

sudo vi ba-ba-black-sheep.conf

 Type in the settings for this Virtual Host in the just opened editor :

<VirtualHost 127.0.1.1:80>

ServerName ba-ba-black-sheep

ServerAdmin me@ba-ba-black-sheep

DocumentRoot /home/me/ba-ba-black-sheep/www

<Directory /home/me/ba-ba-black-sheep/www>

Options -Indexes

AllowOverride All

Order Allow, Deny

Allow From All

</Directory> 

</VirtualHost>

Now all this might seem a bit fancy so let me explain what we just did here.

• First line <VirtualHost 127.0.1.1> specifies the ip address at which this host resides. This will usually be in 127.x.x.x range for local servers.
• ServerName ba-ba-black-sheep sets the name of the server as it would finally appear e.g. http://ba-ba-black-sheep/.
• ServerAdmin This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   is your email address to be used for server admin.
• DocumentRoot /home/me/ba-ba-blacksheep/www/ is the webdirectory path i.e. the path where you will store all your web scripts for the web server. e.g. the php, html etc. files
• <Directory /home/me/ba-ba-blacksheep/www/> initializes the block of rules for the web dir. these are generally the kind of rules you can also specify in the .htaccess files on you webroot.
• Options -Indexes specifies that the webserver won't return a list of files in the web directory to the client(browser) if no index file is present

cd ../sites-enabled

ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/ba-ba-black-sheep.conf ./ba-ba-black-sheep.conf

sudo vi ../apache2.conf

#Include the virtual host configurations

NameVirtualHost 127.0.1.1:80

Include /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

 Run the following :

sudo vi /etc/hosts

Edit the configuration after 127.0.0.1 to add your site name: Note that you willprobably have your own device name instead of shantanu-laptop  in the file.

127.0.0.1      loaclhost
127.0.1.1      shantanu-laptop ba-ba-black-sheep

sudo /etc/init.d/apache restart

 /home/me/ba-ba-black-sheep/www

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