This tutorial explains about Apache HTTP Server( Apache Web Server) Installation. Let us learn about what Apache HTTP Server is and how to install and configure it on a Linux Machine.

Apache http Server

Apache is a very well known open-source Web Server. It is not only popular but also very old Web Server. Like any other Web Servers, Apache also accepts requests from the clients, search for the requested queries and then send the response back to them.

 

Also Read : How to install Anaconda on Linux

&& Install Redis on Linux from source

 

Apache HTTP Server Installation

 

Step 1- Update your Linux Box

 

   $ yum update -y

 

Step 2- Install Apache Web Server

 

 $ yum install httpd -y 

 

Step 3- Start httpd service

 

 $ service httpd start

 

Step 5- check the httpd service status

 

$ service httpd status

 

Step 6- Run chkconfig command to run the httpd service automatically after a system reboot

 

$ chkconfig httpd on

 

Step 7- To browse website from the Internet, open port 80  for http and 443 for https in your  Server firewall , Network Firewall and Security Group (If using AWS or any other cloud service)

 

Now your Apache-Server is installed and ready.

Configuring Apache HTTP Server

 

Let us understand the Apache HtTTP Server step by step from basic to advanced.

As soon as your installation is done and port is opened in the security group, without doing any configuration change just enter the public IP in the web browser of any computer. You will see the default page as shown below.

 

 

To access the server from your domain name, create A record for your web server in your DNS zone configuration.If you are not managing your DNS Server please take help of your DNS team/IT Team to do so.

I have created A record for my domain as follows:

devopsmyway.in ————-> IP Address of my Server.

Now I can browse the Apache Web Server from my domain name i.e devopsmyway.in. The same test page will come as I did not change any configuration yet.

 

Basic Configuration of Apache HTTP Server

 

Let’s do some basic changes to open your Web Server (Web Site)  as per your configuration.

Create an index.html file in “/var/www/html” directory and write some content in this to serve in the web browser. I am using echo command here to create and write content in index.html.

  $ echo “Hello , Welcome to Devopsmyway.in ” > /var/www/html/index.html

As soon as you create and write content in index.html file in Document Directory “/var/www/html” your website will start serving the content written in index.html.

Now we have done the basic configuration of Apache Web Server. Let us move ahead and learn some advanced settings.

Virtual Host

Virtual host comes into picture when you want to host multiple Websites on a Single Server. Virtual host are of two types:

1. Name-based virtual host
2. IP based virtual host

Name-based Virtual Host

Name-based Virtual Host is used to configure multiple websites on a Single Server having a single IP Address. To configure Name-based Virtual hosts we need to do configuration changes in Apache Configuration file.

Apache Configuration file :  /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

 

Let us configure two websites www.devopsmyway.in and www.devopsmyway.net on the same Server with same IP address. To do so , open /etc/http/conf/httpd.conf and add the following lines at the bottom of the file.

$ vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

<VirtualHost 172.31.22.60:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/devopsmyway.in
ServerName www.devopsmyway.in
ErrorLog logs/www.devopsmywa.in-error_log
CustomLog logs/www.devopsmyway.in-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 172.31.22.60:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/devopsmyway.net
ServerName www.devopsmyway.net
ErrorLog logs/www.devopsmyway.net-error_log
CustomLog logs/www.devopsmyway.net-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

Now Create to Directories as follows:

 $ mkdir -p /var/www/html/devopmyway.net

 $ mkdir -p /var/www/html/devopmyway.in

Create index.html file in each folder and add some content in it.

$ echo “Hello , Welcome to Devopsmyway.in ” > /var/www/html/devopsmyway.in/index.html

 $ echo “Hello , Welcome to Devopsmyway.net ” > /var/www/html/devopsmyway.net/index.html

Now check the configuration and restart the httpd service

 $ httpd -t

 $ service httpd restart

Note: If you donot have two websites in Public DNS , you can do host entry in /etc/hosts on the same server as follows for testing

Now you will able to browse both the URL.

IP based virtual host

IP bases virtual host is used to configure multiple websites on a Single Server with multiple IP Addresses. To configure IP-based Virtual hosts we need to do the following configuration changes in the Apache configuration file.

Let us configure two websites www.devopsmyway.in and www.devopsmyway.net on the same Server on two IP addresses. To do so , open /etc/http/conf/httpd.conf and add the following lines at the bottom of the file.

<VirtualHost 172.31.22.60:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/devopsmyway.in
ServerName www.devopsmyway.in
ErrorLog logs/www.devopsmywa.in-error_log
CustomLog logs/www.devopsmyway.in-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 172.31.27.122:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/devopsmyway.net
ServerName www.devopsmyway.net
ErrorLog logs/www.devopsmyway.net-error_log
CustomLog logs/www.devopsmyway.net-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

Again check your configuration, restart the httpd service and browse both the sites using the curl command.

 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learned to launch Apache http Server on AWS . If you think this is really helpful, please do share my website https://devopsmyway.com to others as well. I will continue for the tutorial for Apache in my next blog. Also, please give your valuable feedback in the comment box.