The problem

• One public IP address
• Multiple webservers

The solutions

• Use different ports
  • Your users will have to know the correct port or may end up on a wrong website
• Use a single webserver
  • You may require multiple webservers due to web-apps needs)
• Use a webproxy
  • The one I’m going to explain

How it works

Your webproxy will be on port 80 accepting all http connections, it’ll send the requests to the correct webserver

based on the hostname.
eg.
site1.com > 192.168.1.11
site2.com > 192.168.1.12
site3.com > 192.168.1.13

NGinx setup

Download nginx

# wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-0.8.33.tar.gz

Uncompress nginx

# tar -zxf nginx-0.8.33.tar.gz

Enter on nginx directory

# cd nginx-0.8.33

Compile and install nginx

• Since it’s a proxy most of the modules aren’t needed i’ll just skip them.
• Openssl support is required for https
• Ipv6 is required on my setup and is more futureproof

# ./configure  --without-select_module  --without-poll_module  --without-http_charset_module  --without-http_gzip_module  --without-http_ssi_module  --without-http_userid_module  --without-http_access_module  --without-http_auth_basic_module  --without-http_autoindex_module  --without-http_geo_module  --without-http_map_module  --without-http_referer_module  --without-http_rewrite_module  --without-http_fastcgi_module  --without-http_memcached_module  --without-http_limit_zone_module  --without-http_limit_req_module  --without-http_empty_gif_module  --without-http_browser_module  --without-http_upstream_ip_hash_module  --without-mail_pop3_module  --without-mail_imap_module  --without-mail_smtp_module  --without-pcre --with-openssl=/usr/lib/openssl --with-ipv6

# make
# make install

Configure nginx

# cd /etc/nginx/
# nano nginx.conf

Default nginx.conf’d work fine, just be sure you’ve the line:

include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;

It should look like this:

user              nginx;
worker_processes  1;

error_log         /var/log/nginx/error.log;
#error_log        /var/log/nginx/error.log  notice;
#error_log        /var/log/nginx/error.log  info;

pid               /var/run/nginx.pid;

events {
 worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
 include       /etc/nginx/mime.types;
 default_type  application/octet-stream;

 log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] $request '
 '"$status" $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
 '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

 access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

 sendfile        on;
 #tcp_nopush     on;

 #keepalive_timeout  0;
 keepalive_timeout  65;

 #gzip  on;

 include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;

}

VirtualHosts

site1.com vhost / default
/etc/nginx/conf.d/site1.com

server {
 # For ipv6 only or ipv6 + ipv4
 listen   [::]:80 default;
 # For ipv4 only
 # listen   80 default;
 server_name www.site1.com;
 location / {
 proxy_pass              http://192.168.1.11:80;
 proxy_set_header        Host            $http_host;
 proxy_set_header        X-Real-IP       $remote_addr;
 proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
 proxy_redirect          off;
 }
 }

/etc/nginx/conf.d/site2.com

server {
 # For ipv6 only or ipv6 + ipv4
 listen   [::]:80;
 # For ipv4 only
 # listen   80;
 server_name www.site2.com;
 location / {
 proxy_pass              http://192.168.1.12:80;
 proxy_set_header        Host            $http_host;
 proxy_set_header        X-Real-IP       $remote_addr;
 proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
 proxy_redirect          off;
 }
 }

Init.d script

#!/bin/sh
#
# nginx - this script starts and stops the nginx daemin
#
# chkconfig:   - 85 15
# description:  Nginx is an HTTP(S) server, HTTP(S) reverse \
#               proxy and IMAP/POP3 proxy server
# processname: nginx
# config:      /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
# config:      /etc/sysconfig/nginx
# pidfile:     /var/run/nginx.pid

# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

# Source networking configuration.
. /etc/sysconfig/network

# Check that networking is up.
[ "$NETWORKING" = "no" ] && exit 0

nginx="/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx"
prog=$(basename $nginx)

NGINX_CONF_FILE="/etc/nginx/nginx.conf"

[ -f /etc/sysconfig/nginx ] && . /etc/sysconfig/nginx

lockfile=/var/lock/subsys/nginx

start() {
 [ -x $nginx ] || exit 5
 [ -f $NGINX_CONF_FILE ] || exit 6
 echo -n $"Starting $prog: "
 daemon $nginx -c $NGINX_CONF_FILE
 retval=$?
 echo
 [ $retval -eq 0 ] && touch $lockfile
 return $retval
}

stop() {
 echo -n $"Stopping $prog: "
 killproc $prog -QUIT
 retval=$?
 echo
 [ $retval -eq 0 ] && rm -f $lockfile
 return $retval
}

restart() {
 configtest || return $?
 stop
 start
}

reload() {
 configtest || return $?
 echo -n $"Reloading $prog: "
 killproc $nginx -HUP
 RETVAL=$?
 echo
}

force_reload() {
 restart
}

configtest() {
 $nginx -t -c $NGINX_CONF_FILE
}

rh_status() {
 status $prog
}

rh_status_q() {
 rh_status >/dev/null 2>&1
}

case "$1" in
 start)
 rh_status_q && exit 0
 $1
 ;;
 stop)
 rh_status_q || exit 0
 $1
 ;;
 restart|configtest)
 $1
 ;;
 reload)
 rh_status_q || exit 7
 $1
 ;;
 force-reload)
 force_reload
 ;;
 status)
 rh_status
 ;;
 condrestart|try-restart)
 rh_status_q || exit 0
 ;;
 *)
 echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|restart|condrestart|try-restart|reload|force-reload|configtest}"
 exit 2
esac

Change it’s permissions

#chmod 755 /etc/init.d/nginx

Start nginx

#/etc/init.d/nginx start

Set nginx to start on boot

chkconfig nginx on

That’s it, now all you have to do is to forward port 80 on your router to nginx server and it’ll do the rest.

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.