Question

Hosting 3 Sites On the Same Droplet using subdomains

Posted on July 11, 2023
Ubuntu 18.04 Apache
Asked by samunyi90

Hello members, can one host several projects for instance 3, on the same droplet using subdomains? I’m using Apache as web server. I would wish to serve three sites as follows:

sub_1.example.com sub_2.example.com sub_3.example.com

Your assistance will be highly appreciated.

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KFSys

Site Moderator

• July 12, 2023

Accepted Answer

Hey @samunyi90,

Yes, you can definitely host multiple sites on the same DigitalOcean Droplet using subdomains. Apache allows this through a feature called VirtualHosts. A VirtualHost can be configured for each subdomain. Below are the general steps you would need to take:

Create a Directory For Each Subdomain’s Content: Create a new directory in /var/www/ for each subdomain where you’ll keep the respective website’s files:

mkdir -p /var/www/sub_1.example.com/public_html
mkdir -p /var/www/sub_2.example.com/public_html
mkdir -p /var/www/sub_3.example.com/public_html

Make sure you set appropriate permissions for these directories.

Create Apache Configuration Files: For each subdomain, you’ll need to create a new configuration file in /etc/apache2/sites-available/. For example:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/sub_1.example.com.conf

Inside this file, you would put:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@example.com
    ServerName sub_1.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/sub_1.example.com/public_html
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Save and close the file.

Do the same for sub_2 and sub_3, just replace sub_1 with sub_2 and sub_3 respectively in the above steps.

Enable the New Virtual Host Files: Apache comes with a tool to enable and disable these site files. Use the a2ensite tool to enable each of the sites:

sudo a2ensite sub_1.example.com.conf
sudo a2ensite sub_2.example.com.conf
sudo a2ensite sub_3.example.com.conf

Restart Apache: Once you have enabled the necessary configurations, you need to restart Apache to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Update DNS Settings: You’ll also need to create DNS A records for each subdomain that points to your droplet’s IP address. This will be done through your DNS provider (where you bought your domain).

That’s it! You now have three sites being served from the same Droplet, each from their own subdomain. If you have SSL certificates, you can configure each VirtualHost to also listen on port 443 and point to the respective certificates. This setup can be repeated for any number of sites you need to host.