How can I get Virtualmin to behave like a traditional web host (i.e. Godaddy/Hostgator)?

Its probably an apache configuration problem.

Are there any errors?

What do the logs show?

/var/logs/apache/error.log

You’ve said they don’t function as intended. You need to provide much more detail. The more you give, the more chance you have of getting help. Its also always helpful to post your distro, apache version, php version, config files of apache (via paste bin is probably best).

Regarding hosts, the site I want to move is perfectprofiler.com. That site is live elsewhere right now because it will not work at DO on Virtualmin yet. So I am using a hosts file on my Windows desktop to test access to that site. I was making that comment so the readers of this thread would understand that the site is not live on DO.

Is there any reason I should not be able to use a HOSTS file to test? I can reconfigure the site to a new DNS name (i.e. test.perfectprofiler.com), but was hoping I didn’t have to go through that each time. Utilizing a HOSTS file seems to work find on the other web providers, but maybe I am missing something with Virtualmin to do this.

I agree to focus on getting the site up past the 500. Is there anything in my .htaccess that looks like a problem. I am pretty sure something in there (or not in there) is causing my 500.

Thanks Mark, hopefully this helps.

I have tried running Ubuntu and CentOS, both with no luck as well as both 32 and 64 bit flavors of Ubuntu 12 and 14. I prefer Ubuntu, so my current test is running:

• Ubuntu 12.04.4 x32 (from the Digital Ocean image)
• PHP: 5.3.10-1ubuntu3.11
• CGI/FastCGI
• Apache: 2.2.22
• PHPINFO from one of my sites on this server
• apache2.conf
• Joomla site .conf

Any errors? Yes the log has a few. Please see: apache2/error.log

My specific issues:

1. After my umteenth iteration here, I can’t recall what the .htaccess was that I needed to get my Joomla site to at least pull up. The site gets an HTTP 500 error right now, I am using a hosts file to access it. Here is the .htaccess
2. The Joomla site has some portions of text that do not format correctly (once the site is up)
3. The Joomla site has a pdf creator plugin that does not properly generate pdfs. I believe I fixed this with getting the PHP version at 5.3. Will need to test when I can get the site up again.
4. I would like to run the document expiration settings in my .htaccess. “ExpiresActive…” and “ExpiresByType…” I just don’t know what widget to install for this support.
5. Is having to remark out “Options +FollowSymLinks” a problem?
6. I think I added enough stuff in with the apt-get in my first post to get my Wordpress site working properly. As far as I can tell it is good, but I just have an uneasy feeling since I am throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks. Not my favorite way to troubleshoot, but I clearly don’t have extensive Linux knowledge.

Thanks, Kai