Install Apache on Ubuntu EC2: Change Port and Web Folder

By Ravindra Bagale, trainer · LinkedIn · Last updated: 18 October 2026

1. Why Ubuntu

Why. Amazon Linux is made by AWS, and you mostly meet it on AWS. Companies also run servers on Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud and DigitalOcean. Ubuntu is available on nearly every cloud, so it's one of the most common server systems you'll be handed at work.

What. Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Fedora, SUSE and Kali are all Linux distributions: each one is built on the Linux kernel and adds its own tools. Ubuntu is based on Debian. Most commands you learned (cd, ls, nano, sudo, mv) work the same. Two things change:

1. The login user is ubuntu, not ec2-user.
2. Software is installed with apt-get (or apt), not yum or dnf.

2. Launch an Ubuntu server

Why. Picking the right image decides the user name, the package manager and the service names for everything that follows, so pick it deliberately.

How.

Step 1. In the EC2 console click Launch instance. Give it a name.

Step 2. Under Application and OS Images pick Ubuntu (the Free tier eligible Ubuntu Server image).

Step 3. Instance type: the free-tier one, as before.

Step 4. Key pair: choose your existing key pair, or create a new one (see below).

Step 5. Network settings: select your existing Security Group that allows port 22 (SSH) and port 80 (HTTP).

Step 6. Storage: leave the root disk at its default size. Click Launch instance.

Key pairs: one per app. Servers of the same application can share one key pair. Different applications should get different key pairs.

Example 1. Suppose we run 10 Instagram servers and 10 Facebook servers. All ten Instagram servers use instagram-key.pem; all ten Facebook servers use facebook-key.pem. If one key leaks, only that app's servers are at risk, not every server you run.

Disks. One EC2 instance can have several EBS disks:

1. The root disk holds the operating system. For the Ubuntu and Amazon Linux images it is 8 GB by default. You can make it bigger at launch, and some other images, such as Windows, start bigger.
2. Extra disks can be attached, of any size you choose, for example 1 GB for practice.

3. Connect: the user is ubuntu

Why. The key is the same, but the user isn't. Ubuntu images have no ec2-user, so using it gives Permission denied (publickey).

How. From your laptop terminal, with your key and the new server's public IP:

ssh -i mykey.pem ubuntu@PUBLIC_IP

Answer yes to the fingerprint question the first time. The prompt now looks like ubuntu@ip-172-31-xx-xx:~$.

Example 2: the same key, two servers.

1. Amazon Linux: ssh -i mykey.pem ec2-user@PUBLIC_IP
2. Ubuntu: ssh -i mykey.pem ubuntu@PUBLIC_IP

Only the user name before the @ changes.

4. apt-get: update the list first, then install

Why. A package manager knows where to download software from. It keeps a list of packages and their download links on the server. On a brand-new server that list can be old, and old links point to files that are gone.

What.

1. sudo apt-get update downloads a fresh list. It doesn't install anything, and it doesn't ask a question, so no -y.
2. sudo apt-get install apache2 -y installs Apache. On Ubuntu, Apache's package and service are called apache2, not httpd.

Example 3: installing straight away on a new server. You run sudo apt-get install apache2 -y first. Lots of lines scroll past, so it looks like it's installing, but near the end you see:

Err:1 http://...archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu ... apache2-bin amd64 ...
  404  Not Found [IP: ... 80]
E: Failed to fetch http://.../apache2-bin_..._amd64.deb  404  Not Found [IP: ... 80]
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

Then apache2 -v says command not found. Nothing was installed. 404 Not Found and Failed to fetch mean the list is old: the spelling is right, the links are not.

How.

Step 1. Refresh the package list:

sudo apt-get update

Step 2. Install Apache:

sudo apt-get install apache2 -y

Step 3. Check it's there:

apache2 -v

It prints two lines, Server version: Apache/... (Ubuntu) and Server built: .... If you get command not found, the install didn't happen.

Make it a habit: on every new Ubuntu server, run sudo apt-get update first, then install.

5. Start Apache and put your own page live

Why. Installing proves nothing until a browser shows your page. Replacing Ubuntu's default page with your own is the final check that the whole chain works.

How.

Step 1. Start Apache and check it:

sudo service apache2 start
sudo service apache2 status

Look for Active: active (running). On Ubuntu, Apache usually starts by itself after the install; running start again does no harm.

Step 2. The status screen waits for you. Press q to get your prompt back.

Step 3. Open http://PUBLIC_IP/. You see the Apache2 Default Page with the Ubuntu logo. It comes from /var/www/html/index.html:

cd /var/www/html
ls

Step 4. Replace it with your own page:

sudo rm index.html
sudo nano index.html

Type:

<h1>ubuntu</h1>

Save with Ctrl+X, Y, Enter, then refresh the browser. It shows ubuntu. To publish a real site, upload your HTML pages into /var/www/html with scp, as in the last chapter.

Step 5. Run history to see all of it in order:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2 -y
apache2 -v
sudo service apache2 start
sudo service apache2 status
cd /var/www/html
sudo rm index.html
sudo nano index.html

6. Permission denied (publickey): four causes

Why. This is the most common SSH error, and it happens a lot when you have both Amazon Linux and Ubuntu servers.

ubuntu@PUBLIC_IP: Permission denied (publickey).

What. It has four usual causes:

1. Wrong key file: the .pem of a different key pair, or a wrong path to it.
2. Wrong IP: another server's IP, or the old IP after a stop and start.
3. Wrong user name: ubuntu on Ubuntu, ec2-user on Amazon Linux.
4. A different OS than you think: you launched Amazon Linux but log in as ubuntu, or the other way round.

How to check which OS it is.

Step 1. EC2 › Instances › select your instance.

Step 2. In the Details tab, read the AMI name. Ubuntu images start with ubuntu/images/...; Amazon Linux 2023 images start with al2023-ami-....

7. Apache to Nginx on Ubuntu

Why. As on Amazon Linux, Apache and Nginx both want port 80, and only one program can use a port at a time. So stop Apache before you install Nginx: on Ubuntu, the Nginx package tries to start itself right after the install, and that start fails while Apache holds port 80.

How.

Step 1. Stop Apache:

sudo service apache2 stop

Step 2. Install Nginx:

sudo apt-get install nginx -y

Step 3. Start it:

sudo service nginx start

Step 4. Refresh http://PUBLIC_IP/. You still see ubuntu, your own page, now served by Nginx. You didn't copy anything: on Ubuntu, Nginx also uses /var/www/html, and it serves your index.html before its own default page.

The defaults side by side. On Amazon Linux, Apache uses /var/www/html and Nginx uses /usr/share/nginx/html, so switching means copying your files. On Ubuntu both use /var/www/html. Both systems serve index.html as the first page, on port 80 for http and 443 for https.

When you're done with the Ubuntu practice, terminate the Ubuntu instance (or stop it), so it doesn't keep running.

8. Apache's settings live in a file in /etc

Why. The folder /var/www/html, the first page index.html and port 80 are only defaults. A project may want the site in its own folder, on another port, or with another first page. You change these in Apache's settings file.

What. Settings (configuration) files live in /etc:

1. Apache on Amazon Linux: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
2. Nginx: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Folder or file? A folder is like a tiffin box, and the chapatis inside are the files. A folder holds files, and can also hold other folders. /etc/httpd/conf is a folder; httpd.conf is a file inside it.

How to read httpd.conf. You don't need to learn a language. It is a plain text file:

1. A line that starts with # is a comment. Apache ignores it; it's an explanation for you.
2. A setting is a name, a space and a value, for example Listen 80.
3. Some settings sit inside a block such as <IfModule dir_module> ... </IfModule>.

Nginx's file uses a slightly different style (each setting ends with ; and blocks use { }), but the idea is the same: find the right name and change its value.

The three lines we change today look like this in the file:

Listen 80
DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
<IfModule dir_module>
    DirectoryIndex index.html
</IfModule>

1. DocumentRoot: the folder of the website. Only a folder, never a file.
2. Listen: the port Apache waits on.
3. DirectoryIndex: the first page shown when the URL ends with a folder. You can list several names; Apache tries them from left to right and serves the first one that exists.

9. Your own folder, port and first page (Amazon Linux)

Why. Real servers rarely keep the defaults. One server can host a college site on its own port and folder, so you must know exactly which three lines to change.

Example 4: what we'll build.

1. Folder: /var/www/mycollege
2. Port: 90
3. First page: college.html
4. URL: http://PUBLIC_IP:90/

Why /var/www. Public website folders go under /var (or /usr), not under /home, which is private to each user. httpd.conf already allows Apache to read everything under /var/www (the block <Directory "/var/www"> with Require all granted), so a new folder there works straight away. A folder outside /var/www would need its own <Directory> block.

How.

Step 1. Start your Amazon Linux instance, connect as ec2-user, and start Apache:

sudo service httpd start

Step 2. Open the settings file. It belongs to root, so sudo:

sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

There is a lot in it. Don't worry; you only need three lines. Use Ctrl+W in nano to search for a word.

Step 3. Change the port. Find Listen 80 and make it:

Listen 90

Step 4. Change the folder. Find DocumentRoot "/var/www/html" and make it:

DocumentRoot "/var/www/mycollege"

Step 5. Change the first page. Find DirectoryIndex index.html and make it:

DirectoryIndex college.html index.html

Now college.html is tried first, and index.html is the fallback.

Step 6. Save with Ctrl+X, Y, Enter.

Step 7. Create the folder and the page:

cd /var/www
sudo mkdir mycollege
cd mycollege
sudo nano college.html

Type a page. Marathi works too:

<h1>माझं कॉलेज</h1>
<p>पुण्याचा पाऊस, कॉलेजचा कट्टा आणि चहा.</p>

The terminal may show boxes instead of the Marathi letters, because its font lacks them. The browser shows them correctly.

Step 8. Tell Apache to read the file again:

[ec2-user@ip-172-31-xx-xx mycollege]$ sudo service httpd reload
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl reload httpd.service

reload makes Apache re-read httpd.conf without stopping. The Redirecting line only says that service passed your command to systemctl, the tool that manages services. sudo service httpd restart (stop, then start) works too.

Step 9. Open http://PUBLIC_IP/. It no longer opens, because Apache now waits on port 90, and a URL without a port means port 80.

Step 10. Open http://PUBLIC_IP:90/. It waits and times out: the Security Group doesn't allow port 90 yet.

Step 11. Open port 90 in the Security Group:

1. EC2 › Instances › select the instance › Security tab › click the Security Group.
2. Edit inbound rules.
3. Leave the existing rules for 22 and 80 as they are.
4. Add rule: Type Custom TCP, Port range 90, Source 0.0.0.0/0 (anyone; right for a public website).
5. Save rules.

Step 12. Refresh http://PUBLIC_IP:90/. Your Marathi page from /var/www/mycollege/college.html opens.

Example 5: the first page falls back. Rename college.html to old.html and refresh. Apache finds no college.html, tries the next name, index.html, and if that's missing too, you get Apache's test page. Rename it back.

10. When httpd won't start

Why. One wrong character in httpd.conf and Apache won't start. The server is the patient and you are the doctor: don't guess, read the report.

What you see.

[ec2-user@ip-172-31-xx-xx ~]$ sudo service httpd restart
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl restart httpd.service
Job for httpd.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status httpd.service" and "journalctl -xeu httpd.service" for details.

How.

Step 1. Check the status of the service that failed:

sudo service httpd status

(systemctl status httpd.service shows the same.)

Step 2. Read the last lines. They name the file, the line number and the reason. The two most common reasons:

1. The port is already taken, for example Nginx is running on the same port.
2. A typo in the config file.

Example 6: a file in DocumentRoot. The status shows:

AH00526: Syntax error on line 124 of /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:
DocumentRoot '/var/www/index.html' is not a directory, or is not readable

Line 124 says DocumentRoot "/var/www/index.html". DocumentRoot takes a folder; the file name belongs in DirectoryIndex. Fix the line to a folder, for example DocumentRoot "/var/www/mycollege", save, and start again:

sudo service httpd start

Step 3 (a useful habit). Before reloading, let Apache check the file:

sudo apachectl configtest

It prints Syntax OK when the file is fine, or the same error message, with the line number, when it isn't.

11. The whole flow on one page

1. Ubuntu: user ubuntu, packages with apt-get.
2. sudo apt-get update, then sudo apt-get install apache2 -y, apache2 -v, sudo service apache2 start, sudo service apache2 status (q to exit).
3. Your page in /var/www/html (sudo rm index.html, sudo nano index.html).
4. Permission denied (publickey): key file, IP, user name, OS (AMI name).
5. Nginx on Ubuntu: sudo service apache2 stop, sudo apt-get install nginx -y, sudo service nginx start; same folder, no copy.
6. Amazon Linux settings: sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf; Listen, DocumentRoot, DirectoryIndex; sudo service httpd reload.
7. New port: add a Custom TCP rule in the Security Group, and put :port in the URL.
8. Won't start: sudo service httpd status, read the line, fix, start; sudo apachectl configtest.

12. A billing question? Open a free AWS Support case

Why it came up. While launching extra servers for practice, learners sometimes see an unexpected charge or a billing hold on their account, and don't know whom to ask.

Background. 1. Every AWS account, even on the free Basic support plan, can open Account and billing cases at no cost. 2. In the console, open the ? menu at the top right → Support Center → Create case. 3. Choose Account and billing, pick the service and the category that fit (for example General), and describe the problem: which charge, which month, what you expected. 4. AWS replies in the Support Center and by email. Technical questions need a paid support plan; billing questions don't. 5. Before you open a case, check Billing and Cost Management → Bills to see which service and Region the charge came from. Often it is a server or disk you forgot to stop or delete.

How it links to this chapter. This chapter has you run an Ubuntu server next to your Amazon Linux one. Two servers use free-tier hours twice as fast, so stopping both when you finish, and knowing where to ask if a bill looks wrong, belong to the same habit.

13. Hands-on lab: Apache on Ubuntu, then your own port and folder on Amazon Linux

Why this lab. The same job looks different on two Linux families, and the defaults rarely survive on a real server. This lab hosts a page on Ubuntu, then moves an Amazon Linux site to port 90, its own folder and its own first page.

1. Log in to Ubuntu
   • Command: ssh -i mykey.pem ubuntu@PUBLIC_IP
   • You should see: A prompt like ubuntu@ip-...:~$.
   • Check: whoami → ubuntu
   • Why: On Ubuntu images the login user is ubuntu. ec2-user here gives Permission denied (publickey).
2. Refresh the package list
   • Command: sudo apt-get update
   • You should see: Hit: and Get: lines, then Reading package lists... Done.
   • Check: No Failed to fetch lines.
   • Why: A fresh Ubuntu server's list is old, so installs fail with 404 Not Found. update refreshes the list; it installs nothing.
3. Install Apache
   • Command: sudo apt-get install apache2 -y
   • You should see: Download and setup lines, ending back at the prompt.
   • Check: apache2 -v → Server version: Apache/2.4... (Ubuntu)
   • Why: On Ubuntu the package and the service are apache2, not httpd. Ubuntu also starts it for you after install.
4. Replace the default page
   • Command: cd /var/www/html && sudo rm index.html && sudo nano index.html
   • You should see: An empty file. Type <h1>ubuntu</h1>, save with Ctrl+O, Enter, exit with Ctrl+X.
   • Check: http://PUBLIC_IP/ shows ubuntu.
   • Why: The Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page proves only the install. Your own page proves the whole chain: service, folder, port 80 and the security group.
5. On Amazon Linux: back up httpd.conf
   • Command: sudo cp /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf ~/httpd.conf.bak
   • You should see: Nothing.
   • Check: ls ~ shows httpd.conf.bak.
   • Why: One wrong character stops Apache. With the copy you can always go back to a working file.
6. Make the new folder and first page
   • Command: sudo mkdir /var/www/mycollege && echo "<h1>My college</h1>" | sudo tee /var/www/mycollege/college.html
   • You should see: <h1>My college</h1>
   • Check: ls /var/www/mycollege → college.html
   • Why: Under /var/www, Apache is already allowed to read, so the new folder works without an extra <Directory> block. tee writes as root.
7. Change the three lines
   • Command: sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
   • You should see: Set Listen 90, DocumentRoot "/var/www/mycollege" and DirectoryIndex college.html index.html. Save and exit.
   • Check: sudo apachectl configtest → Syntax OK
   • Why: Listen is the port, DocumentRoot the folder (never a file), DirectoryIndex the first page. configtest catches typos before a restart takes the site down.
8. Restart and test inside
   • Command: sudo service httpd restart && curl http://localhost:90
   • You should see: <h1>My college</h1>
   • Check: curl http://localhost (port 80) now fails with Connection refused.
   • Why: Apache reads its settings only at start. Port 80 refusing proves it really moved to 90.
9. Open port 90 and test outside
   • Do: Security group → Edit inbound rules → Add rule → Custom TCP, port 90, source Anywhere-IPv4 → Save rules.
   • Check: http://PUBLIC_IP:90/ shows My college.
   • Why: A new port is closed until the security group allows it. Without :90 the browser uses port 80.
10. Restore and stop both servers
    • Command: sudo cp ~/httpd.conf.bak /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf && sudo service httpd restart
    • You should see: Nothing.
    • Check: curl http://localhost works on port 80 again. Stop the Ubuntu and Amazon Linux instances.
    • Why: The backup is how you undo. Two running servers use free-tier hours twice as fast.

14. Try at home

Recap

Ravindra Bagale, trainer: linkedin.com/in/ravindra-bagale. The key names (mykey.pem, instagram-key.pem, facebook-key.pem), the folder mycollege, the page college.html and its Marathi text are examples for learning; PUBLIC_IP stands for your instance's public IPv4 address. Package names, links and version numbers in the outputs are shortened with "..."; the hostname in the prompt is illustrative.

Revision, comparison and interview cards

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