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Chapter 7: Static Website Hosting (3 OSes × 2 Web Servers)

7.12 Hosting multiple sites on one server (virtual hosts)

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Think of one building with many shops: the building has one address (IP), but each shop has its own name board (domain). Technically, the browser sends the domain in the HTTP Host header, and the web server picks the matching server_name / ServerName block. Mauli Dairy's order site and blog on one server work exactly this way.

One server can host many websites; the web server chooses the site by the Host header (domain name) sent by the browser.

 site1.example.com ─┐                       ┌─► /var/www/site1
                    ├─► 13.233.10.25:80 ────┤
 site2.example.com ─┘   (one IP, one port)  └─► /var/www/site2

# Nginx: one server block per site
server { listen 80; server_name site1.example.com; root /var/www/site1; }
server { listen 80; server_name site2.example.com; root /var/www/site2; }

# Apache: one VirtualHost per site
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName site1.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/site1
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName site2.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/site2
</VirtualHost>

Point both domains' DNS A records to the server's Elastic IP (allocate and attach it as in section 5.5; details in section 14.1). Buying a domain and creating these records step by step is covered in Chapter 9. Without real domains you can test from your laptop by adding a line 13.233.10.25 site1.example.com to your hosts file (/etc/hosts on Linux/Mac, C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows), or with curl -H "Host: site1.example.com" http://13.233.10.25.

Ravindra Bagale's Tip

For projects you want to show in an interview or put on your resume, spend a little money on a domain and add HTTPS with certbot. A link like https://yourname.dev looks far more professional than http://13.233.x.x. Just don't forget to attach an Elastic IP first, so the DNS record never breaks.

Lab

Chala, /var/www/site1 aani /var/www/site2 banva, donhi sathi server blocks liha, aani curl -H "Host: site1.example.com" http://localhost aani curl -H "Host: site2.example.com" http://localhost ne donhi vegle pages distat ka te check kara.