How to configure web server in Linux

How to configure web server in Linux

When you view a web page over the Internet, the code to create that page must be retrieved from a server somewhere on the Internet. The server that sends your web browser the code to display a web page is called a web server. There are countless web servers all over the Internet serving countless websites to people all over the world. Whether you need a web server to host a website on the Internet a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server can function as a web server using the Apache HTTP server. The Apache HTTP server is a popular, open source server application that runs on many UNIX-based systems as well as Microsoft Windows.
Dear visitor this article is written for RHEL 5. We have updated version of this article for RHEL6 with video tutorial. If you are looking for RHEL6 please check this article. How to configure Web Server in RHEL6.
Exam question 1 There are two sites www.vinita.com and www.nikita.com. Both sites are mappings to 192.168.0.X IP address where X is your Host address. Configure the Apache web server for these sites to make accessible on web

Configure web server

In this example we will configure a web server.
necessary rpm for web server is httpd, httpd-devel and apr check them for install
Now configure the ip address to 192.168.0.254 and check it

start httpd daemons and verify its running status

Configure virtual hosting

In this example we will host a website www.vinita.com to apache web server. create a documents root directory for this website and a index page

for testing purpose we are writing site name in its index page

save file and exit
now open /etc/hosts file

in the end of file bind system ip with www.vinita.com

now open /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf main configuration file of apache server

locate virtual host tag

remove # from the beginning and add the IP of host

Now go in the end of file and copy last seven line [ virtual host tag ] and paste them in the end of file. change these seven lines as shown in image

now save this file and exit from it
you have done necessary configuration now restart the httpd service and test this configuration run links command

if links command retrieve your home page

means you have successfully configured the virtual host now test it with site name

In output of links command you should see the index page of site

Configure multiple site with same ip address

At this point you have configured one site www.vinita.com with the ip address 192.168.0.254. Now we will configure one more site www.nikita.com with same ip address
create a documents root directory for www.nikita.com website and a index page

for testing purpose we are writing site name in its index page

save file and exit
now open /etc/hosts file and bind system ip with www.nikita.com

now open /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf main configuration file of apache server

Now go in the end of file and copy last seven line [ virtual host tag ] and paste them in the end of file. change these seven lines as shown in image

now save this file and exit from it
you have done necessary configuration now restart the httpd service

test this configuration run links command

In output of links command you should see the index page of site

configure multiple site with multiple ip address

Now we will host multiple sites with multiple ip address. Create a virtual lan card on server and assign its an ip address of 192.168.0.253. we will create a testing site www.nidhi.com and will bind it with ip address of 192.168.0.253
create a documents root directory for www.nidhi.com website and a index page

for testing purpose we are writing site name in its index page

save file and exit
now open /etc/hosts file and bind system ip with www.nidhi.com

now open /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf main configuration file of apache server

Now go in the end of file and copy last seven line [ virtual host tag ] and paste them in the end of file. change these seven lines as shown in image

now save this file and exit from it
you have done necessary configuration now restart the httpd service

test this configuration run links command

In output of links command you should see the index page of site

How to create site alias

Now I will show you that how can you use site alias to configure more name of same site. we configure a site www.vinita.com in stating of example. now we will create www.goswami.com site alias for this site so this site can be access with both name.
To create alias first make its entry in /etc/hosts file as shown here

Now open main apache configuration /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Now go in the end of file and copy last seven line [ virtual host tag ] and paste them in the end of file. change these seven lines as shown in image

now save this file and exit from it
you have done necessary configuration now restart the httpd service and test this configuration run links command

In output of links command you should see the index page of site