Getting Started with PHP: Web Hosting Setup

As one of the most popular programming languages ​​today, PHP is widely used in Web development. When learning PHP, an important step is how to set up a virtual host.

What is Web Hosting?

Virtual host is a virtual server that can host multiple domain names on the same physical host and provide different services based on different domain names. Unlike an actual physical host, a virtual host is just a logical concept that is implemented by the web server using multiple configuration files.

Why use virtual host?

Hosting multiple websites on one physical host can bring many benefits, the most significant of which is reduced costs. Compared with each website requiring a separate server, using a virtual host can host multiple domain names on the same server, which greatly saves money and resources. Additionally, web hosting simplifies the management and maintenance of your website.

How to set up a virtual host?

In the Apache server, the settings of the virtual host can be achieved through the configuration file. Let’s take a look at the specific steps.

Step 1: Open the httpd.conf file

The httpd.conf file is the configuration file of the Apache server and is usually located in the conf folder under the Apache installation directory. Use a text editor to open the file and look for the following sentence:

Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

This means that the httpd-vhosts.conf file contains the virtual host Configuration information. If there is a # symbol in front of the line, it means that the line has been commented out and the comment symbol needs to be removed.

Step 2: Edit the httpd-vhosts.conf file

Add the configuration information of the virtual host in the httpd-vhosts.conf file. Each virtual host needs to set a ServerName (server name) and DocumentRoot (document root directory).

For example, we have set up two virtual hosts:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/site1"
  ServerName site1.example.com
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/site2"
  ServerName site2.example.com
</VirtualHost>

We have set up two domain names here, namely site1.example.com and site2.example.com, and their root directories are C :/xampp/htdocs/site1 and C:/xampp/htdocs/site2.

Note that in the above configuration information, * means listening on all IP addresses, and 80 means listening on port 80, which is the default HTTP port of the web server.

Step 3: Modify the hosts file

In order for the virtual host to take effect, you also need to modify the local hosts file. This file is located in the C:WindowsSystem32driversetc directory and needs to be opened with administrator rights.

Add the following content at the end of the file:

127.0.0.1 site1.example.com
127.0.0.1 site2.example.com

Here site1.example.com and site2.example.com are mapped to the local IP address 127.0.0.1 respectively.

Step 4: Restart the Apache server

After completing the above operations, you need to restart the Apache server for the configuration file to take effect. In Windows systems, you can restart the Apache server through the XAMPP control panel.

At this point, the work of configuring the virtual host is completed. Next, we can use different domain names to access different websites.

Summary

The above are the detailed steps on how to set up a virtual host in the PHP Getting Started Guide. Using virtual hosts can save costs and simplify management, and is a commonly used technology in web development. Although the operation may be a bit cumbersome, as long as you follow the above steps step by step, you will be able to successfully configure the virtual host.

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