Apache virtualhosts: different paths serve different application on same IP

Question

I have setup on my local network an Ubuntu server with Apache2 on it.

I would like to manage different applications on the same server, when you request an url a dedicated application is served.

E.g.

http://192.168.0.25/my_app_1 -> responds with app1 (for example a Ruby on Rails app)
http://192.168.0.25/my_app_2 -> responds with app2 (for example a php website)
[...]
# where 192.168.0.25 is the IP of the server

I think that this is done by configuring correctly the virtualhosts in Apache2.

At this moment, a sample configuration of app1 (i.e. Ruby on Rails) is like the followed:

<VirtualHost 192.168.0.25:80>
 DocumentRoot path_to_my_public_app1_folder
 <Directory path_to_my_public_app1_folder>
  Options -MultiViews
  AllowOverride All
 </Directory>
 RailsEnv production
</VirtualHost>

How can define the sub path? Maybe something like this?

<VirtualHost 192.168.0.25/my_app1:80>

Am I doing it right? Because at this moment I recieve a 404 (not even the custom Apache page "It's work!")

Answer 1

VirtualHost means something different. It allows you (in short) to host sites responding to different names, e.g.:

http://mydomain.com
http://anotherdomain.com

on the same server. So think of it as virtual appaches, all on the same machine, but identified by different names.

Your usecase is different. You want to configure the instance 192.168.0.25 and how it serves different requests. So the part after the host in the URL: http://HOST/PATH_TO_APP

For the instance responding to 192.168.0.25 you should edit the default config in

/etc/apache2/sites-available/default

You can add the following:

Alias /my_app_1 path_to_my_public_app1_folder
Alias /my_app_2 path_to_my_public_app2_folder