Virtual Private Server User Guide

The Apache Web Server

   Some search engines and "Web crawler" spiders that do not support the 

HTTP/1.1 protocol will not be able to index your virtual hosts' Web sites. Most 

major search engines do not have this problem, but you should be aware that 

there are some out there that do.

   Providing Web hosting for people that you do not personally know and trust 

on your VPS server can potentially expose you to a security risk. If you 

conduct e commerce on your server, or store sensitive customer or other 

data, we encourage you to eliminate risk by not hosting additional Web sites 

on your server unless you manage them yourself.

   Your VPS server can have only one IP address. (Your IP address is a number 

to which the DNS for your domain name points. This function is essentially 

similar to the way in which a phone number can point to a street address.) 

Many domain names may point to one IP address, but an IP address can 

point to only one domain name. A DNS lookup that finds the IP address that 

corresponds to a domain name is called a forward DNS lookup. The 

corresponding reverse DNS lookup can find a domain name based on its IP 

address. 

Only the main domain on your VPS server can have both a forward and reverse 

lookup, all of the other vhosts can only have a forward lookup. Apache takes this 

into consideration, and will automatically send requests to the appropriate vhosts 

based on the domain name to which the requests were sent. (This is similar to the 

way a street address points to a building that may have a number of occupants), 

but if someone attempts to get content from your Web server through your IP 

address rather than your domain name, they would only be able to get content 

from your main domain name.

So What Exactly Counts as a Virtual Host?

Because each VPS server provides a specific allotment of virtual hosts that can 

be hosted, you may be wondering what counts as a virtual host and what does 

not. We define a virtual host as an additional domain name or canonical that 

points to a separate set of Web files; in other words, a virtual host has its own 

distinct document root. 

Domain names that share the document root of an existing virtual host, and 

therefore do not contain their own Web files, are sometimes referred to as 

"domain pointers." Domain pointers, which are often used to catch multiple 

spellings of a domain name, do not count against your virtual host allotment.

Adding a Virtual Host

There are three basic steps to adding a virtual host on your VPS server. To avoid 

potential problems for you or your customers, it is important to follow Steps 1 

through 3 below in order:

Step 1: Register the Domain Name

Technical Training Department

August 2004

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