vhost

vhost is a command line utility for creating new Virtual Hosts for the Apache Server. It was build out of laziness. Currently the script supports creating files for the Apache Web Server. Nginx support is on the roadmap but due to my lack of Nginx knowledge currently far away.

NOTE: vhost has only been tested on Ubuntu 14.04 running Apache 2.4.7! On other Linux Distributions most used programms (rm, cp, sed, sudo) should be available. It could happen that things go bad and you break your local Server. Be warned!

With a Linux Distribution similar to Ubuntu (such as Kubuntu, Lubuntu, etc.) you should be good to go. Other Linux Distributions as well as OS X most likely need to adjust the script as needed.

This script is not intended to, and will never, run on Windows

vhost - installation

Clone this repository to some place on your computer.

$ cd ~/workspace/github
$ git clone git@github.com:kevingimbel/vhost.git

Next symlink the template.conf to /etc/apache2/sites-available - this file is the template for all future Virtual Hosts. You'll also need to make vhost executable and then symlink the vhost executable to some place that's in your $PATH.

So, inside the Repository do the following

$ (sudo) ln -s /full/path/to/template.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available
$ chmod +x vhost
$ ln -s /full/path/to/vhost /usr/local/bin/vhost

Now you should be able to run vhost -h to get a help and usage message.

At this point you should perform a quick system check. Run vhost --test and vhost will do a basic check for functions, folders and directories.

vhost - usage

Creating a new Virtual Host is now as easy as calling vhost test - this will generate a Virtual Host configuration file named test.local.conf inside /etc/apache2/sites-available/, add a Document Root to /var/www/html/ named test, generate a index.html inside the new Document Root and add a new Host entry to the /etc/hosts file. The script also reloads Apache to activate the new configuration.

That's it, you can now visit http://test.local and see your shiny new Virtual Host in action.

You can also do a test run with vhost -t. This creates the configuration for http://test.local/ and tries to reload your Apache Server. To remove this host type vhost -r test.

vhost - configuration

You can modify the template.conf file as you wish by changing default Document Roots, Server Names or whatsoever. Inside the file is a variable names {{CUSTOM}}. This variable is replaced by whatever you pass as an argument to vhost.

So let's say you want to publish your sites at .dev instead of .local and your default Document Root should be on ~/workspace. Your template file would then look like this.

<VirtualHost *:80>
  	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
  	ServerName {{CUSTOM}}.local

  	DocumentRoot /var/www/html/{{CUSTOM}}

    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/{{CUSTOM}}.local/error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/{{CUSTOM}}.local/access.log combined

   <Directory "/var/www/html/{{CUSTOM}}/">
     AllowOverride all
     Require all granted
   </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

# <VirtualHost *:443>
#     ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
#     ServerName {{CUSTOM}}.local
#
#     SSLEngine on
#     SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/{{CUSTOM}}.crt
#     SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/{{CUSTOM}}.key
#
#     DocumentRoot /var/www/html/{{CUSTOM}}
#     
#     ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/{{CUSTOM}}.local/error.log
#     CustomLog /var/log/apache2/{{CUSTOM}}.local/access.log combined
#
#    <Directory "/var/www/html/{{CUSTOM}}/">
#      AllowOverride all
#      Require all granted
#    </Directory>
# </VirtualHost>

vhost-ssl

vhost-ssl - install

Like installing vhost you just need to make the file executable and link it somewhere in your path. Then run vhost-ssl -v to verify it worked.

$ (sudo) ln -s /full/path/to/vhost-ssl /usr/local/bin/vhost-ssl
$  vhost-ssl -v

vhost-ssl - configuration

vhost-ssl is a utility tool to create SSL keys and certificates for self-signed SSL certificates to use in local development. To run vhost-ssl you will need to create a .vhostrc in your home directory (~/). Inside configure a default key file used to sign certificates and a default output directory.

# .vhostrc
vhost_ssl_cert_dir="/etc/ssl/certs"
vhost_ssl_key_file="/etc/ssl/private/apache.key"

The .vhostrc file is read in when the command runs.

vhost-ssl - usage

See vhost --usage for a usage overview.

Usage: vhost-ssl [options [arg]]
Script to create SSL keys and certificates.

Options:
    -u,--usage            Show usage message
    -h,--help             Show help message for command, e.g. vhost-ssl -c --help
    -v,--version          Show version and author info
    -i,--info             Show info about root privileges
    -c,--cert [str]       Name of the certificate to be created
    -o,--out [str]        Output directory for key file
    -k,--key [str]        Create a key file, pass name as argument

Run 'vhost-ssl COMMAND --help' for more information on a command.
For example 'vhost-ssl -c --help'