It is possible with Apache to host multiple websites with a single static IP address. However, you can only have one SSL certificate per static IP. This post describes setting up Apache with multiple secure virtual hosts and a single self-signed wildcard certificate. To learn about creating the certificate, check out Creating Self-Signed Certs on Apache 2.2.

Here’s a table of our example hosts:

In order for the certificate to be trusted, you need to obtain the certificate from a trusted certificate authority. Since we are using self-signed certificates, they are not trusted and we will see some warning messages. The data will still be encrypted.

For this to work, we are going to use name-based virtual hosts.

The name and location of Apache’s configuration files vary based on which platform you use. This post assumes Ubuntu in which case the configuration files in the /etc/apache2 directory.

For starters, we need to tell Apache which ports to listen on by editing the file /etc/apache2/ports.conf.

Listen 80
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    Listen 443
</IfModule>

Next we need to add our virtual hosts. They are kept in the /etc/apache2/sites-available directory. For organization purposes, separate your sites into separate config files, then run a2ensite for each site to generate a symbolic link in the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled directory.

Here is the configuration for the sites:

NameVirtualHost 192.168.1.200:80
NameVirtualHost 192.168.1.200:443

# http://site-a.com
# https://site-a.com -- Throws warning because cert is for *.site-a.com... see bottom
# http://www.site-a.com
# https://www.site-a.com
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.200:80 192.168.1.200:443>
  ServerName site-a.com
  ServerAlias www.site-a.com
  DocumentRoot /path/to/www.site-a
  # Note: SSL settings only need to be defined once!
  SSLEngine On
  SSLCertificateFile /path/to/thecert.crt
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/thecert.key
</VirtualHost>

# Not SSL, redirect to https://secure.site-a.com
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.200:80>
  ServerName secure.site-a.com
  Redirect / https://secure.site-a.com/
</VirtualHost>

# https://secure.site-a.com
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.200:443>
  ServerName secure.site-a.com
  DocumentRoot /path/to/secure.site-a
</VirtualHost>

# http://test.site-a.com
# https://test.site-a.com
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.200:80 192.168.1.200:443>
  ServerName test.site-a.com
  DocumentRoot /path/to/test.site-a
</VirtualHost>

# http://www.site-b.com
# https://www.site-b.com -- Throws warning because cert is for *.site-a.com
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.200:80 192.168.1.200:443>
  ServerName www.site-b.com
  DocumentRoot /path/to/secure.site-b
</VirtualHost>

# Not SSL, redirect to https://secure.site-b.com
<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName secure.site-b.com
  Redirect / https://secure.site-b.com/
</VirtualHost>

# https://secure.site-b.com -- Throws warning because cert is for *.site-a.com
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.200:443>
  ServerName secure.site-b.com
  DocumentRoot /path/to/secure.site-b
</VirtualHost>

Despite having a wildcard certificate for *.site-a.com, you will get an invalid domain message when you don’t supply the subdomain (i.e. http://site-a.com). The only way I know of to solve this is with 2 static IPs and 2 certs where one cert is for site-a.com and the other is for *.site-a.com.

I’m using 192.168.1.200 for the server’s IP address behind the firewall. You could try using * instead of 192.168.1.200 in the <VirtualHost> blocks, but I haven’t tested this. Leave a comment if you happen to test this.

Assuming the stars have aligned, you should have several secured virtual hosts!