13. Multiple Websites on One Server and HTTPS with Certbot

13.3 Multiple Sites with Apache (Amazon Linux 2023 and Ubuntu)

By Ravindra Bagale · Last updated: 27 September 2026

# 00-default.conf  (loads first, so it is the fallback)
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName default.invalid
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html
</VirtualHost>

# site1.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName site1.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/site1
    ErrorLog  /var/log/httpd/site1_error.log
</VirtualHost>

# site2.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName site2.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/site2
    ErrorLog  /var/log/httpd/site2_error.log
</VirtualHost>

# Ubuntu Apache: enable sites (log path ${APACHE_LOG_DIR})
sudo a2ensite site1.conf site2.conf
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf          # optional
sudo apache2ctl configtest && sudo service apache2 reload

Test without buying domains:

curl -H "Host: site1.example.com" http://localhost        # Welcome to site1
curl -H "Host: site2.example.com" http://localhost        # Welcome to site2
curl -I http://localhost                                  # default block answers

From your laptop, add both names to your hosts file pointing to the server's Elastic IP, then open them in the browser. In Chapter 12 we'll replace this trick with real DNS records. | Step | Amazon Linux 2023 | Ubuntu | |---|---|---| | Config folder | /etc/httpd/conf.d/site1.conf | /etc/apache2/sites-available/site1.conf | | Enable | Automatic (any .conf in conf.d) | sudo a2ensite site1.conf | | Log path | /var/log/httpd/site1_error.log | ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/site1_error.log | | Test | sudo apachectl configtest | sudo apache2ctl configtest | | Reload | sudo service httpd reload | sudo service apache2 reload | | Show vhosts | sudo apachectl -S | sudo apache2ctl -S |