Step By Step Guide to Configure Virtual Host on an Apache in a Ubuntu Machine

ubuntu-apache-conf.sh

#Initial Step is to install / Step Apache
sudo apt-get install apache2

#below steps are done assuming that your website will be hosted under /var/www

#Create a directory that will act as a document root for your site
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.dev/public_html

#Create a directory that will used for Log Storage
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.dev/log

# Document Root & LOG directory should be writable to USERS, not Just for ROOT
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/example.dev/public_html
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/example.dev/log

# Ensure all user have read access to WWW directory
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www

# Create Virtual Host by copying an existing file  [Note: Some version of Ubuntu might not have .conf extension.
sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-000.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.dev.conf

# Before enabling newly created virtual host. we need to make few config changes. Use your favorite Text editor, here i'm using vi
#     1. Document Root to be update to the one we created above
#     2. Change ServerName & ServerAlias to the One you have created above
#     3. Change the ServerAdmin Email ID
#     4. Change Log path to the one created above
sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.dev.conf

# Final conf file for this example would look like the one in comments

# Time to enable new virtual host
sudo a2ensite example.dev

# As we are using a full qualified domain name "example.dev" its good to make appropriate entry in hosts file. Sample given comment
sudo vi /etc/hosts

# Reload / Restart your apache  (I have given both option, its fine to use any one)
sudo service apache2 restart

sudo service apache2 reload

example.dev.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
        # The ServerName directive sets the request scheme, hostname and port that
        # the server uses to identify itself. This is used when creating
        # redirection URLs. In the context of virtual hosts, the ServerName
        # specifies what hostname must appear in the request's Host: header to
        # match this virtual host. For the default virtual host (this file) this
        # value is not decisive as it is used as a last resort host regardless.
        # However, you must set it for any further virtual host explicitly.

        ServerName example.dev
        ServerAlias www.example.dev
        ServerAdmin serveradmin@gobinath.com
        DocumentRoot /var/www/example.dev/public_html

        # Available loglevels: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
        # error, crit, alert, emerg.
        # It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
        # modules, e.g.
        #LogLevel info ssl:warn

        ErrorLog /var/www/example.dev/log/error.log
        CustomLog /var/www/example.dev/log/access.log combined

        # For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
        # enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
        # include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
        # following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
        # after it has been globally disabled with "a2disconf".
        #Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf
</VirtualHost>

hosts file sample

# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost

#Virtual Hosts - using local IP address assuming that there is no Public Static IP assigned to the server
127.0.0.1    example.dev