Configuring multiple websites on a single Apache instance - apache

Question

I am looking for a way to host multiple websites on a single server. Currently I have used reverse proxy to host two of the websites using the following method:
I have a php site in /var/www/html folder and a nodejs app running on localhost:3015. My apache2 config is like following:-
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName site1.example.com
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
</VirtualHost>
# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet
<VirtualHost *:80>
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass / http://localhost:3015/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:3015/
ServerName site2.example.com
</VirtualHost>
Now I further want to host few old websites at:
site1.example.com/archives/2014, 13 and so on
site2.example.com/archives/2014, 13 and so on.
In case of site1.example.com I can use alias as the site hosted is a php site.
In the second case where I am using reverse proxy what will be the best way to host a php site.
Also, please suggest a way where new sites can be easily added and the old sites can be moved to archived folder. These site might be on django, ROR and so on.
Is this even possible?

Answer 1

This may not be quite what you are asking for, but give this a try. It's a variation on the Apache config I use in a dev VM, which is set up for wildcard domain hosting. I haven't tested this config specifically, but you should be able to tweak it to suit your needs.
This essentially tells Apache how to find sites such as:
site1.example.com => /var/www/html/site1/public_html
site2.example.com => /var/www/html/site1/public_html
2014.archive.site1.example.com => /var/www/html/site1/public_html/archives/2014
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias *.example.com
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
<Directory />
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/html>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
RewriteEngine on
RewriteMap lowercase int:tolower
# *.example.com
RewriteCond ${lowercase:%{SERVER_NAME}} ^[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.example\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.+) ${lowercase:%{SERVER_NAME}}$1 [C]
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)\.example\.com/(.*) /var/www/html/$1/public_html/$2
# *.archive.*.example.com
RewriteCond ${lowercase:%{SERVER_NAME}} ^[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.archive\.[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.example\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.+) ${lowercase:%{SERVER_NAME}}$1 [C]
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)\.archive\.([a-zA-Z0-9-]+)\.example\.com/(.*) /var/www/html/$2/public_html/archives/$1/$3
</VirtualHost>
If this isn't what you were asking for, let me know.

Answer 2

I finally figured out a way to do the same. What you need to do is host all the sites at different port:
site1 => 3015
site2 => 4015
site3 => 3014
site4 => 4014
and so on.
Now you can configure your default.conf in apache2 as following:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass /archive/2014/ http://localhost:3014/
ProxyPassReverse /archive/2014/ http://localhost:3014/
ProxyPass / http://localhost:3015/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:3015/
ServerName site1.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass /archive/2014/ http://localhost:4014/
ProxyPassReverse /archive/2014/ http://localhost:4014/
ProxyPass / http://localhost:4015/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:4015/
ServerName site2.example.com
</VirtualHost>
This will work for sites on any platform, currently my site3 and site4 are php and site1 and site2 are node and django respectively. You might need to play with urls and links a little to make everything work perfectly.