How Does Virtual Hosting Works?

Your tech stack’s performance and speed greatly matter in today’s tech-centric digital era. Investing in these tools is quite expensive as it costs thousands of bucks to maintain them. That’s why, as a business owner, you can make a prudent decision to find some middle ways to get things done in zero-to-nominal investments.

One such way is to opt for virtual web hosting, as it will help you cut your IT costs. And the best thing about virtual hosting is that you don’t need to compromise on quality. Virtual web hosting lets you have your business’s online presence without much tech knowledge and resources. Without further ado, let’s dive into it.

The concept of virtual hosting began in the late 1990s. In the 1990s, server technology was improved. One physical server was divided into multiple virtual servers. This cutting-edge technology revolutionized the entire web hosting industry. Now, one question will surely pop into your mind – what is virtual web hosting? Let’s understand it briefly in layperson’s terms.

In simple terms, virtual hosting means hosting more than one website on a single machine. The machine on which these websites are hosted is called a virtual host (virtual server). This physical server can share all resources like CPU, disk space, memory cycles, etc. Using virtual hosting, business owners and individuals can have their online presence with minimal spending on infrastructure and hardware.

Virtual hosting divides a single server into multiple virtual servers through hypervisors or containers. Therefore, every virtual server runs independently using its own resources, settings, and operating system. The best thing about it is that one website’s issue or traffic does not affect other websites’ performance.

The concept of virtual web hosting is simple. It lets multiple websites live on a single physical server. It simply means effective usage of the resources with minimum investments. We have summarized the main virtual web hosting concepts in the tabular format below.

Important Virtual Web Hosting Concepts

Here, the main concept that you need to understand is that virtual web hosting uses the resource-sharing principle. So, each website gets its CPU power, RAM and ROM allocation, memory cycle, etc., and none of the websites interfere with the other website’s performance. Before we dive deep into how virtual web hosting works, let us first understand what a server is.

It is a computer on which your web host stores the required files and databases your website needs. Whenever any visitor or user wants access to your website, the browser sends a request to your server. Once your server accepts the request, it transfers the required files online. Now, let’s understand how virtual web hosting works.

In virtual hosting, you will get a virtual server. This virtual server acts as a physical server. However, the reality is different. The main physical server is shared among several users through a hypervisor. Virtualization technique is used to create these virtual servers. In this technique, virtualization software isolates the OS from the computer hardware (main physical server). So, the host machine hardware can individually operate various guest virtual machines. The main physical server can share resources like network bandwidth, disk space, RAM, etc.

To conclude, when the physical server is virtualized, different websites can utilize the server’s capacity and resources at a much higher rate. It increases productivity and efficacy. Now, users can securely access their data.

Server virtualization also simplifies and centralizes server management, resource allocation, and elimination, saving your IT resources. In short, virtual web hosting sets your website in a secure container with dedicated resource allocation such as CPU power, network bandwidth, memory, etc. You don’t require sharing these resources with other websites. So, you can enjoy root-level access like the dedicated server but at a reasonable cost.

The Virtual web hosting offers various benefits, a few are listed as follows:

• Cost-Efficiency: In virtual hosting, one physical server can host multiple websites. You can save money and resources. So, virtual web hosting is a lucrative solution.
• Reliability And Flexibility: Virtual web hosting provides you with guaranteed uptime and high reliability as it isolates each website from others. Besides, you can even start with the cheapest plan, and once you need more resources and features, you can upgrade your plan. So, flexibility is also the primary benefit you will get from the virtual hosting.
• Professional management: Virtual web hosting usually comes with centralized server management. You get a user-friendly interface to manage administrative tasks and an easy-to-use control panel to manage your website comfortably. You can even customize the server configuration to fit your website’s needs.
• Seamless Migration: If you want to migrate your website from one server to another without downtime or performance issues, you can do it through virtual hosting. So, if your business needs frequent online presence relocation, virtual hosting is perfect for you.

Now that you know what virtual web hosting is and its benefits, let’s understand how to create your virtual host and the different ways to configure it in the next section.

There are three different ways in which you can create a virtual host.

1. Based On the IP Address

It is one of the simplest ways to create virtual hosting, so even beginners can easily configure it. In this configuration, you need to use different IP addresses for each domain. However, it will point to the unique server’s domain. The drawback of the IP-based configuration is that the server needs a dedicated IP address for each website.

2. Port-Based

Port-based virtual hosting configuration is not the same as IP-based. So, you should not get confused. In port-based configuration, you must use different ports for each virtual host. These ports will point to the unique server’s port. This type of configuration is time-consuming.

3. Based On the Multiple Hostnames

The most common and popular way to create a virtual host is name-based. It is used globally. In this type of virtual hosting, you need to use multiple hostnames for the one IP address.

Whenever the browser tries to connect to the server, the browser will send a message to the server with the domain name to which it is trying to establish a connection. Once a successful connection is established, the server returns the request with the right website.

The con of this type of configuration is that you cannot easily host many websites that utilize SSL/TSL.

Let’s create a virtual host by using the Apache hosts and the Ubuntu OS. We use both of these because they are user-friendly, reliable, and most trusted.

Step 1: Update The Softaware

• The prerequisites for the creation of a virtual host are Ubuntu OS and Apache installation. You can do it using the following commands if you don’t have Apache installed.

sudo apt-get update

Step 2: Install Apache Software

Now, install the apache software on the operating system such as Ubuntu with the following command:

sudo apt-get install apache2

• Let’s start with the step-by-step process.

Step 3: Directory structure creation

• In the first step, we will create a directory structure to store the website data or accept data from visitors. You need to use the following command under the document root – /var/www directory.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/app2.pranshtech.com/public_html

Step 4: Give Permissions

• Generally, root users have ownership of the directory structure. However, you can change it using the following command.

sudo chown -R $USER : $YOUR_USER_NAME/var/www/app2.pranshtech.com/public_html
    

Step 5: Creation of the demo page for every virtual host

• Now, we will create a sample test page for pranshtech.com. To create it, you can use vi or any other editor.
• Type the following command to create the demo page for pranshtech.com

vi /var/www/app2.pranshtech.com/public_html/index.html

• In the index.html file, you need to type the following basic HTML code.

<html>

<head>

<title>Home Page of pranshtech.com <title>

</head>

<body>

<h1>Hurrah! The virtual host of app2. pranshtech.com is working properly. </h1>

</body>

</html>

Step 6: New file setup

• Apache contains the default host configuration file named 000-default.conf. We will use the same to set up the new file for our virtual host.
• So, let’s copy this file to pranshtech.com using the following command.

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sitesavailable/pranshtech.conf

• Once the file is copied, you can open it using your preferred editor.

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

DocumentRoot /var/www/html

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

• Now, change the email address. ServerAdmin admin@pranshtech.com , In the next step, add ServerName and ServerAlias using the following command.

ServerName  pranshtech.com
ServerAlias    www.app2.pranshtech.com

• Now, the final step is to change the document root’s location. Use this command for it.

DocumentRoot /var/www/app2.pranshtech.com/public_html.

Step 7: File Enabling

• Let’s enable our virtual files through the following command.

sudo a2ensite app2.pranshtech.com.conf

• Once it is done, you need to restart the Apache server.

sudo service apache2 restart

Step 8: Test Web Hosting

It is result time. Open your web browser and enter pranshtech.com. You will see the result like this –

Hurrah! The virtual host of pranshtech.com is working properly.

• Virtual web hosting also has its own set of cons. The main three issues or challenges with virtual web hosting are:

1. Slower website performance

2. Compatibility issues with a few plugins or software

3. Security concerns

Is there any solution to this? Yes! Let’s check out how to troubleshoot these issues in the next section.

• If you experience slow website performance, you need to optimize the code. Besides, keep your plugins and software up-to-date. Upgrade the server resources whenever required. It will help you improve your website speed and resolve compatibility issues.
• Upgrade security measures and implement SSL certificates. Use strong passwords and also back up your data regularly.
• Keep yourself updated about potential threats.

Virtual web hosting is an excellent option for businesses that want to set up and grow their online presence but don’t need to spend a hefty amount on resources and tools. With virtual hosting, businesses can share their resources on a single server and enjoy scalability and cost savings.

The best thing about virtual web hosting is that multiple websites can coexist without any interference. So, the websites can enjoy first-rate security and performance. Besides, you can easily manage and customize an individual website. Each website gets specific disk space, CPU power, and RAM in virtual hosting. So, no website can have a monopoly on resources. Therefore, each website can enjoy stability and fairer workloads. You can add or remove any website to scale up its performance whenever you want. You will even get top-notch security as each website remains in its private environment. So there is no chance of malware spreading.

In short, due to affordability and flexibility, virtual web hosting is gaining popularity in the tech world. If you are planning to opt for virtual hosting, connect with us today.

What is virtual hosting?

Virtual hosting is popularly known as shared hosting. It is the type of hosting in which you can host multiple websites on a single server. Each website will get some part of the server’s resources like bandwidth, disk space, and memory.

For Which Websites Or Online Stores Virtual Hosting Is Suitable?

Virtual hosting suits almost all small to medium-sized blogs, websites, and online stores. However, if you own a website or online store with high traffic or resource-intensive apps, you should go for cloud or dedicated hosting.

How Can I Choose A Reliable Virtual Hosting Provider?

You need to consider the following factors when choosing a reliable virtual hosting provider.

• Security measures
• Bandwidth availability
• Consumer support
• Guaranteed uptime
• Storage capacity
• Provider’s reputation
• Price
• Features

What are the Advantages of Virtual Web Hosting?

You can enjoy flexibility, cost-effectiveness, scalability, ease of maintenance, etc., which are the advantages of virtual web hosting.

What are the Disadvantages of Virtual Web Hosting?

You can experience slower loading time or downtime for your website in the case of virtual web hosting. This is because sometimes a single website utilizes maximum resources or experiences high traffic so that it will affect the other website’s performance.