Apache HTTP Server Virtual Hosts (on Solaris)

Some posts ago (Poor man's web redirection using a servlet filter) I described how I'm sending an HTTP Redirect Status Code back to a client. Such a solution was easy for me to implement because we're already running Java EE applications on our application servers and, on the other hand, we have no other web server available (if you're thinking about Apache HTTP Server). The previous post fails in pointing out that, implementing such a solution from scratch, is really overkill.

If you're one of the many users of Apache HTTP Server you should be aware of a functionality called Virtual Hosts. Virtual hosts let you run multiple web sites on a single Apache HTTP server instance and requests will be forwarded to the appropriate web site by using either the target IP address or the name you used to connect to the site. The last step will be configuring Apache so that such a Virtual Host will be served by proxying the destination server.

With such a proxy/gateway you'll be able, for example:

• To serve different domains, subdomains or even specific URLs with just one Apache HTTP Server instance.
• To offer a gateway in the case you've got a reduced number of public IPs and you don't want to publish HTTP services on ports other than 80.
  

DNS configuration

First of all I substituted the old DNS record with a CNAME which points to this Apache HTTP Server instance. Now, whenever a client requests www.domainA.com, the connection will be established with the target Apache.

Apache HTTP Server Startup

On (Open)Solaris, check if you've got an Apache HTTP Server instance running:

# svcs \*apache\*
STATE          STIME    FMRI
legacy_run     Mar_13   lrc:/etc/rc3_d/S50apache
disabled       Mar_13   svc:/network/http:apache2

If it isn't running, create a suitable configuration file in /etc/apache2:
# cp httpd.conf-example httpd.conf

Once the configuration file is created, the service should start normally:
# svcadm enable svc:/network/http:apache2
# svcs http:apache2
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         Nov_15   svc:/network/http:apache2

Apache HTTP Server Configuration

The last thing to do is creating virtual hosts:

NameVirtualHost *

<VirtualHost *>
ServerName domainA.com
DocumentRoot /var/apache2/htdocs
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *>
ServerName subdomain.domainA.es
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass / http://localhost:8083/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8083/
</VirtualHost>

In the previous fragment you can notice the following:

• the NameVirtualHost directive lets you configure Apache to listen on a specific address and port. In this case, any IP address and any port (*) have been configured.
• The VirtualHost sections let you define virtual hosts. Please note that the NameVirtualHost value and the VirtualHost value must be the same (in this case, *).
• The ServerName directive is used to assign the domain name a virtual host should serve.
• ProxyPreserveHost is used to tell Apache not to override the Host HTTP header when connecting to the proxied host.
• ProxyPass and ProxyPassReverse lets you map proxied URL spaces. In this case, everything (/) is sent to the proxied host (http://localhost:8083/).

Further Readings
If you want to go into deeper detail, please read the following:

• mod_proxy documentation
• Apache Virtual Hosts documentation