How to host multiple sites from virtual box Ubuntu lamp stack

Question

I'm pretty close to doing what I want, but alas, the solution to the final hurdle eludes me. Essentially I'm trying to get to a position where I can host multiple sites on one vb and access them using a simple url from either machine...

My setup:

Windows 7 host which contains an entry in hosts file which reads: 192.168.0.30 laravel.dev I have a DHCP reservation for this address, which reserves it for my virtualbox's unique mac address

Virtualbox is set up with a bridged network adapter and promiscuous mode: allow all (not sure if this is necessary) I have made no changes to the hosts file on guest os.

I have created a new file named laravel.dev at /etc/apache2/sites-available called laravel.dev and edited it as follows:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    ServerName *.laravel.dev
    DocumentRoot /var/www/laravel.dev/public/
    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>
    <Directory /var/www/laravel.dev/public/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
        AllowOverride None
        Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/laravel_error.log

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel warn

    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/laravel_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

I have then enabled it (I thought) by typing sudo a2ensite laravel.dev and restarting apache

Current Situation:

So at the moment I can access by web root (/var/www/) from the host by typing http://laravel.dev/ in my address bar and I can access it from my guests browser by typing localhost

I can access my projects index file (/var/www/laravel.dev/public/index.php) from the host by typing http://laravel.dev/laravel.dev/public in my address bar and I can access it from my guests browser by typing localhost/laravel.dev/public

What I want

This is OK but what I would like is to be able to access the root of my site (/var/www/laravel.dev/public/index.php) by simply typing laravel.dev in the address bar of either machine - Can anyone explain what I'm doing wrong here. I would be eternally grateful.

Additional info requested:

result of ls -l in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 Feb 26 17:16 000-default -> ../sites-available/default
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 Feb 26 18:27 laravel.dev -> ../sites-available/laravel.dev

...happy to provide any other info which may help solve this.

Also, other than install the lamp stack. I really haven't done anything other than what is listed here - if I haven't mentioned I probably haven't done it so ANY suggestions are appreciated. Safe to assume your dealing with a linux noob... no offense will be taken.

Answer 1

I doubt the problem is a DNS problem, although I do question if the file you have made is actually being read by Apache - the line "DocumentRoot /var/www/laravel.dev/public/" should be enough to get that working.

[ Indeed if this is all you are trying to do, do you need the other guff you have put in ? If not, I'd try removing this file and modifying the DocumentRoot in the main apache config ].

If this does not solve your problem, can you provide the result of "ls -l /etc/apache2/sites-enabled" as there should be a symlink in there to sites-available/laravel.dev which may be missing - if not, we might need to find out if this file is being parsed, and if not, why not.

Answer 2

You could try the tutorial I found here. Seems to give a run down on how to get setup using vhosts on Ubuntu. It also covers Arch Linux as well. But I was able to find out what my issue was after reading the tutorial, I was missing a simple step before following it. Possibly you are running into the same situation. http://www.adminempire.com/how-to-setup-v-host-on-apache/

Also possibly an Alias section would solve your issue with how to type in what you want and not have to include the localhost portion.