Howto: Lighttpd web server setting up virtual hosting

Last time I wrote about setting and installing lighttpd web server.

Virtual hosting allows sharing a lighttpd web server so that you can have multiple domains hosted on single web server. For example:
=> www.nixcraft.com
=> www.cyberciti.biz
=> www.theos.in etc

Our setup

Lighttpd supports both Name-based and IP-based virtual hosts. Let us see how to configure two web sites for:
=> www.nixcraft.com
=> www.theos.in

First create a directory for each domain:

# mkdir -p /home/lighttpd/nixcraft.com/http
# mkdir -p /home/lighttpd/theos.in/http
# chown lighttpd:ftpuser1 /home/lighttpd/nixcraft.com/http
# chown lighttpd:ftpuser2 /home/lighttpd/theos.in/http

Replace ftpuser1 and 2 with actual ftp username.

Also create a log directory for each domain:
# mkdir /var/log/lighttpd/nixcraft.com
# mkdir /var/log/lighttpd/theos.in

Only allow a web server to access our logs:
# chown -R lighttpd:lighttpd /var/log/lighttpd

Open lighttpd configuration file:
# vi /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

Add support for domain nixcraft.com:
$HTTP["host"] =~ "(^|\.)nixcraft\.com$" {
server.document-root = "/home/lighttpd/nixcraft.com/http"
server.errorlog = "/var/log/lighttpd/nixcraft/error.log"
accesslog.filename = "/var/log/lighttpd/nixcraft/access.log"
server.error-handler-404 = "/e404.php"
}

Add support for domain theos.in:
$HTTP["host"] =~ "(^|\.)theos\.in$" {
server.document-root = "/home/lighttpd/theos.in/http"
server.errorlog = "/var/log/lighttpd/theos.in/error.log"
accesslog.filename = "/var/log/lighttpd/theos.in/access.log"
server.error-handler-404 = "/e404.php"
}

Where,

• $HTTP[“host”] =~ “(^|\.)theos\.in$” : It will match request for both www.theos.in and theos.in domain
• server.document-root = “/home/lighttpd/theos.in/http” : Server document root. You must set ftp/ssh user home directory to this root only
• server.errorlog = “/var/log/lighttpd/theos.in/error.log” : Server access log file
• accesslog.filename = “/var/log/lighttpd/theos.in/access.log”: Server error log file
• server.error-handler-404 = “/e404.php” : Web server error 404 handler file

Save and close the file. Restart the server:
# /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

Upload file(s) to respective web-root and test your configuration with a web browser.