How to Create Virtual Hosts (Apache) or Server Blocks (Nginx)

What this is

Virtual hosts (Apache) and server blocks (Nginx) let you host multiple websites/domains on one VPS.

What it is for

• Run multiple domains on a single server
• Keep configurations separated and organized

Prerequisites

• Domain(s) pointing to your server IP
• Apache or Nginx installed
• Sudo access

Apache (VirtualHost)

Step 1) Create site directory

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.com/public_html
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/example.com

Step 2) Create a simple index

echo "Hello from example.com" | sudo tee /var/www/example.com/public_html/index.html

Step 3) Create VirtualHost config

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

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName example.com
  ServerAlias www.example.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/public_html
  ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com_error.log
  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Step 4) Enable site and reload

sudo a2ensite example.com.conf
sudo apachectl configtest
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Nginx (server block)

Step 1) Create config file

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name example.com www.example.com;
  root /var/www/example.com/public_html;
  index index.html;
  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
  }
}

Step 2) Enable site

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/example.com

Step 3) Test and reload

sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Final verification

curl -I http://example.com

Warnings & notes

• On some RHEL systems, Nginx configs are under /etc/nginx/conf.d/.
• For production, add HTTPS with Certbot after confirming HTTP works.

Conclusion

You can now host multiple sites cleanly using Apache VirtualHosts or Nginx server blocks.