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I am using a LAMP stack on Ubuntu 14x.

I want to use my server's ip address/subfolder as a "root" domain (http://1.2.3.4/[client]), without using fully qualified domains (www.domain.com).

How do I set this up?

I read about using the apache userdir module, which seems like it would work, but I don't know how to add users.

I also read about setting up virtual hosts, but it seems like that only applies if you are using fully qualified domain names(?)

Accepted Answer

Artelis May 4, 2016

You can use IP addresses in virtual hosts too, e.g.:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName 1.2.3.4
</VirtualHost>

For the userdir module:

sudo a2enmod userdir
sudo service apache2 restart

Apache uses the users on your droplet, so to add others:

sudo adduser newuser

... which creates the directory /home/newuser

sudo mkdir /home/newuser/public_html
sudo chmod 0755 /home/newuser/public_html

Apache will now serve files out of /home/newuser/public_html at the address http://1.2.3.4/~newuser.

heaversm May 13, 2016

Thanks! This worked great to add a user, but how do I make that ~newuser directory act as a base url - meaning if, in my code, I reference a url like /images/img1.jpg - it is referencing http://1.2.3.4/~newuser/images/img1.jpg and not http://1.2.3.4/images/img1.jpg?

Answer 2

heaversm May 13, 2016

Thanks! This worked great to add a user, but how do I make that ~newuser directory act as a base url - meaning if, in my code, I reference a url like /images/img1.jpg - it is referencing http://1.2.3.4/~newuser/images/img1.jpg and not http://1.2.3.4/images/img1.jpg?

How do I use subfolders of my server's IP address as their own "domains" without a FQDN