How to Configure Apache Web Server on Linux
I've shown previously how to install a LAMP server in Ubuntu. If the purpose of your LAMP installation was to set up your own web development environment, then you may want to do some further configuration to your system. This Apache howto is not intended to cover Apache configuration in depth. This is just some basic configuration to help you set up a web development environment in Linux. For more information, see the official Apache documentation.
Why Change the Apache Configuration?
By default, Apache is set up for your web site's files to be in the /var/www directory. This is fine if you only want to work on one website and access it through http://localhost/. But what if you want to work on several websites at the same time? Well, one solution is to create different directories under /var/www like /var/www/site1 and then access it through http://localhost/site1/. I prefer a more elegant solution.
I prefer to build websites in a directory under my own ID. I can then configure the Apache http server to point to the site directories with URLs like http://site1/, http://site2/, etc.
Creating a Web Development Directory
Lets start off by creating a folder structure for the development environment. You can do this from your file manager. I prefer the terminal.
mkdir webdev
cd webdev
mkdir site1 site2
We now have a directory called webdev under our home directory. Within the webdev directory are two directories called site1 and site2.
Create Some Test Files
Now we're going to create some basic test files so that we know our Apache configuration worked. Again, I'm going to use the terminal to create these files, but feel free to use your favorite text editor.
echo 'Site1 works!' > index.html
cd ../site2
echo 'Site2 works!' > index.html
Enable the Sites in Apache
OK, we're now ready to do the actual Apache configuration. Go to /etc/apache2/sites-available.
As root, copy the default file as site1.
Repeat the process to create a site2 file.
As root, edit the site1 configuration file.
Edit the file to look like this (the changes are in bold).
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
ServerName site1
DocumentRoot /home/yourID/webdev/site1/
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /home/yourID/webdev/site1/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
AllowOverride None
Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
<Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Note: The line that changes AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All is required if you want to enable URL re-writes through a .htaccess file. You need this if you want to utilize pretty permalinks in WordPress.
You now need to enable your new site.
You should get a message telling you that you need to reload Apache to activate the new configuration. But first you need to edit your /etc/hosts file.
Edit the first line adding site1 to the end of the line so it looks something like this and save the file.
127.0.0.1 localhost site1
You can now reload Apache.
Site1 is now enabled. Check it by browsing to http://site1/. If everything worked right, you should see a web page that says "Site1 works!"
Repeat the procedure to enable site2, etc.
Edit 12-Dec-09
If you get an error like “apache2: Could not determine the server’s fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.0.1 for localhost,” you can fix it with this command.
echo "ServerName localhost" | sudo tee /etc/apache2/conf.d/fqdnThen, reload Apache to eliminate the error.
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
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190 Responses to “How to Configure Apache Web Server on Linux”
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Thanks! Worked like a charm
Super...I was struggling with an open source application installation for 3 weeks and the steps mentioned by you worked. Thanks a ton!!!!
Hi,
Thanks for the great tutorial. This really helped me. But I am facing some issues.
I have Ubuntu-12.04LTS using vmware on Windows 7. I work on a internet with proxy configuration when I use my laptop in the office else I switch to no proxy. I configured the Apache as per your tutorial for multiple websites. It works great when I don't use proxy with my personnel internet connection at home.
But in office when connected with internet using proxy, it does not work. When I enter the site in address bar of firefox, it gives me google search results. This is not the case when I dont use the proxy at home.
For your information I have following configuration,
1. on Vmware setting for network, I have chosen NAT.
2. On Ubuntu under System Settings -> Network ,
i use manual proxy wwwgate0.xxxxx.com with port 1080 when using office else I configure it to no proxy when at home.
3. On Ubuntu, under Network Connections -> Wired I choose to configure my wired connection IPV4 as always Automatic(DHCP). This remains unchaged in both situations and I am able connect to internet.
4. In firefox under Tools->Options->Network->Connections->Settings, i choose No proxy or Manual depending upon where I am accessing internet.
Please help.
Also, Adding to above information, I am able to open my joomla websites by typing localhost in both cases when I put it in /var/www/ .
So, Apache server is fine with or without proxy on vmware.
Hi,
I got the solution. I was missing on some minor entry under my tools->options->Network->Connections->Settings.
When on proxy network, then under firefox browser all I had to choose was manual proxy with my proxy settings. And I had to add my newly created document root folder with name for example site1, site2 etc. in No Proxy for entry in my firefox browser.
Thanx anyway.
Thanks for posting your solution. I haven't had to work with proxy servers, so I couldn't be of much help.
Thanks a lot, it is working
ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved
what happen?? not working in my ubuntu
Did you replace yourID in the file above with your user ID? Otherwise, it could possibly be a permissions issue with your directories. Do you have execute permission on all of the directories in your path?
yes, i replace "yourID"
how i can execute permission? which directories?
thanks for quick replay my question
You want execute permissions on your home directory, the webdev directory and site1 directory. You should be able to right click on the folders in your file manager to check the permissions. You can also set them from there.
You can also set permissions from the command line:
chmod ugo+x ~/webdev
chmod ugo+x ~/webdev/site1
chmod ugo+x ~/webdev/site2
thanks very much
When I browse to my http://site1/ I only get 'Could notcConnect' errors
As far as I can tell I've followed the directions, including the permissions suggestion.
Browsing localhost gives me the default 'It works!' page, but that's all I can load.
Please Help!?!
hi, dis narender.k i want total informaion abt linux from basic to top level theory notes can u plz..............provide me the site u know/....................
I don't know if you can answer me but I can't find /etc/apache2 directory in Mageia. I don't suppose you know where to look for this?
I'm not very familiar with Mageia, but you may find this forum post helpful.
https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3302
I am new bird in Linux world... I have created my own Linux Apache server in CentOS for my network monitoring with CACTI, I have configured each & everything & my apache is working fine. I have registered my web portal also but still i am not able to my portal(web-page) with other machine in network. please suggest me what can i do for resolution of my this error. Please help me & guide for succesful result. Thanks in advanced for my help.
hello, how can I access the site I created following your guide externally? I setup a wordpress, can I show it to someone over the internet? Thanks in advance
Hi! This and your LAMP instructions are working great for me, way better than XAMPP for Linux. Thanks!
One problem I'm encountering: on one of my sites, index.php (in the site's root directory) is not able to access main.css (in /css). The same is true for any resource in a subfolder that index.php tries to access. The specific error is "403 Forbidden."
I have no experience configuring apache or php. Is there a setting somewhere that tells the site to include subfolders? The site's folder is located in my home directory, so I can't imagine that permissions would be an issue.
Ubuntu 12.04, in case that matters.
Ah, I'm a dolt. Checking "Allow executing file as program" under folder properties did the trick. I should have ready into it a bit more.
I was just in the middle of a reply to look at the execute permissions on your folders when your second comment came in. I'm glad you got it figured out.
Hey brother u are really sharing a nice stuff. I got really satisfied answer and technique of configuring apache.thanks once again. it is of great help to me
hey dear, can u guide me for this,,,
when i place any folder inside site1 folder then, i am unable to access that folder.. in my Ubuntu 12.04 via the web browser. The css placed under any sub folder or the java-script also under any sub folder is not considered by the browser.
Example http://site1/ is working but http://site1/css gives forbidden message...
Do you have execute permission on the css folder? If not, try
chmod 755 css
Hey
Thank you for this post .I want to know how can I inheriting HTML templates in APACHE2 Web-server as we can do in Django Framework . And how can I configure my My webpage with JS CSS IMAGE folders in webdev......?
This is a life-saver. Use it lots. But how can I remotely access my ~/webdev/site1 ? It functions just fine on my own computer, but on my home LAN http://192.168.0.1/ gets me "It works!" but http://192.168.0.1/site1 gets me "Not found." AFA I know I've got everything 755 permissions-wise.
I found a solution at:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5922082/apache-see-named-virtual-hosts-from-lan
What additional steps do I have to take to view the sites over my home network? I can view them on the machine that the server is running on, but that is not my main computer.
Are you trying to connect to the IP address of your server or 127.0.0.1? if its 127.0.0.1 this is know as a loopback address for your local machine and you wont be able to connect to another machine using this ip address. Try the IP for the server.
Great Tutorial. Had wrestled with Apache for a while without any luck.
yes, it worked....thank you so much.....