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I have a VPS server with CentOS with multiple domains (some I own, some I don't). I host my sites and my friends sites on it.

I have this structure:

/home/myfriendsusername/public_html/
/home/myotherfriendsusername/public_html/
/var/www/mydomain.com/public_html/

So all my stuff is in my /var/www and my friends have their own username in the home folder. Every VirtualHost is in the httpd.conf and it's getting kinda big (I have over 50+ domains including sometimes sub-domains.

Will it be better to create a file in the sites-enabled for each domain I host like:

/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/myfriendsdomain.com
/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mydomain.com

Is that a good practice? or what I did (using httpd.conf) is correct?

rcs20
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3 Answers3

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It'll be much easier to manage all vhosts in their own separate configuration file. Here is what I would do (on Debian):

Place each vhost configuration in its own file inside /etc/apache2/sites-available/. Use a2ensite to create a symlink between the available vhost sites and the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled directory.

Then just add:

Include /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

To httpd.conf

This way you can easily take sites offline, with a2dissite vhostname, for example: a2dissite mydomain.com

Since you have CentOS, the a2ensite script will not be present. Here's a way to simulate the Debian scripting methods:

http://cosp.org.pk/blog/shoaibi/2009/12/11/open-source/simulating-debian-apache-configuration-management-on-centos/

Mathias R. Jessen
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  • why creating the conf to the sites-available and symlink to the sites-enabled? would it be easier to just create it in the sites-enabled? – rcs20 Feb 15 '12 at 22:13
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    By creating your configurations in sites-available and then symlinking them in sites-enabled, it allows you to disable sites without having to delete the configurations. There are other ways to achieve this, but this is the convention to do it this way. – Richard Holloway Feb 15 '12 at 22:22
  • This OP is using CentOS, not Debian or Ubuntu. – EEAA Feb 16 '12 at 00:04
  • @ErikA oh that make sense now thanks but can i keep the same logic separating the sites? and what can i do to enable / disable? – rcs20 Feb 16 '12 at 13:11
  • @rcs20 answer updated – Mathias R. Jessen Feb 16 '12 at 17:26
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By default (at least in CentOS 6.2), Apache is configured to automatically include any configuration files located in the following directory:

/etc/httpd/conf.d/

Search your httpd.conf for the following line (add if it's not there):

Include conf.d/*.conf

Then just create config files for each virtual host:

/etc/httpd/conf.d/google.com.conf
/etc/httpd/conf.d/serverfault.com.conf

And if you want to disable a virtual host, just rename:

/etc/httpd/conf.d/serverfault.com.conf.backup

Simple!

Tom
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  • On RHEL/CentOS at least, this is the RedHat-endorsed approach. In fact, doing things this way, it's exceedingly rare you'll ever have to edit httpd.conf, which is the whole point: you can do version upgrades and modify the server's mode of operation extensively by doing simple, naïve file manipulation à la that done by RPMs. The `sites-available`/`sites-enabled` approach is just another way to achieve the same goal. – BMDan Feb 26 '12 at 15:33
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Here's an excellent link on how to: http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/ApacheVhostDir

basically you create each config file domain in:

/etc/httpd/conf.d/

example:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName example.org
  ServerAlias *.example.org
  ServerAdmin webmaster@example.org
  ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/example.err
  CustomLog /var/log/httpd/example.log combined
  DocumentRoot /var/www/example.org
  <Directory "/var/www/example.org">
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

There might be times when it is desirable to disable a virtual host. Since the include in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf specifies *.conf, it is possible to hide a virtual host by changing the configuration file name.

Disable a virtual host by adding a _ to the virtual host file name: 

mv -v /etc/httpd/conf.d/example.conf{,_}

Enable a virtual host by removing the _ from the virtual host file name: 

mv -v /etc/httpd/conf.d/example.conf{_,}

restart:

service httpd graceful
EscoMaji
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