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How To Install the Apache Web Server on Ubuntu
22.04 DECLINE ALL

Published on April 26, 2022 · Updated on April 26, 2022 ALL

ACCEPT

Apache Ubuntu Ubuntu 22.04

By Erin Glass and Jeanelle Horcasitas

Not using Ubuntu 22.04? Ubuntu 22.04

Choose a di erent version or distribution.

Introduction
The Apache HTTP server is the most widely-used web server in the world. It provides many powerful
features including dynamically loadable modules, robust media support, and extensive integration with other
popular software.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to install an Apache web server on your Ubuntu 22.04 server.

Prerequisites
Before you begin this guide, you will need an Ubuntu 22.04 server set up with a non-root user with sudo
privileges and a firewall enabled to block non-essential ports. You can learn how to do this by following our
Initial server setup guide for Ubuntu 22.04.
Once you’re done setting this up, log in as your non-root user and proceed to the first step.

Step 1 — Installing Apache

Apache is available within Ubuntu’s default software repositories, making it possible to install it using
conventional package management tools.
Begin by updating the local package index to reflect the latest upstream changes:

$ sudo apt update Copy

Then, install the apache2 package:

$ sudo apt install apache2 Copy

After confirming the installation, apt will install Apache and all required dependencies.

Step 2 — Adjusting the Firewall

Before testing Apache, it’s necessary to modify the firewall settings to allow outside access to the default
web ports. If you followed the instructions in the prerequisites, you should have a UFW firewall configured
to restrict access to your server.
During installation, Apache registers itself with UFW to provide a few application profiles that can be used to
enable or disable access to Apache through the firewall.
List the ufw application profiles by running the following:

$ sudo ufw app list Copy

Your output will be a list of the application profiles:

Output
Available applications:
Apache
Apache Full
Apache Secure
OpenSSH

As indicated by the output, there are three profiles available for Apache:
ApacheThis profile opens only port 80 (normal, unencrypted web traffic)
Apache Full This profile opens both port 80 (normal, unencrypted web traffic) and port 443
TLS/SSL encrypted traffic)
Apache Secure This profile opens only port 443 TLS/SSL encrypted traffic)

It is recommended that you enable the most restrictive profile that will still allow the traffic you’ve
configured. Since you haven’t configured SSL for your server yet in this guide, you’ll only need to allow
traffic on port 80 :

$ sudo ufw allow 'Apache' Copy

You can verify the change by checking the status:

$ sudo ufw status Copy

The output will provide a list of allowed HTTP traffic:

Output
Status: active

To Action From
-- ------ ----
OpenSSH ALLOW Anywhere
Apache ALLOW Anywhere
OpenSSH (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
Apache (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)

As indicated by the output, the profile has been activated to allow access to the Apache web server.

Step 3 — Checking your Web Server

At the end of the installation process, Ubuntu 22.04 starts Apache. The web server will already be up and
running.
Make sure the service is active by running the command for the systemd init system:

$ sudo systemctl status apache2 Copy

Output
● apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; enabled; vendor prese>
Active: active (running) since Tue 2022-04-26 15:33:21 UTC; 43s ago
Docs: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/
Main PID: 5089 (apache2)
Tasks: 55 (limit: 1119)
Memory: 4.8M
CPU: 33ms
CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
├─5089 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
├─5091 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
└─5092 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

As confirmed by this output, the service has started successfully. However, the best way to test this is to
request a page from Apache.
You can access the default Apache landing page to confirm that the software is running properly through
your IP address. If you do not know your server’s IP address, you can get it a few different ways from the
command line.
Try writing the following at your server’s command prompt:

$ hostname -I Copy

You will receive a few addresses separated by spaces. You can try each in your web browser to determine
if they work.
Another option is to use the free icanhazip.com tool. This is a website that, when accessed, returns your
machine’s public IP address as read from another location on the internet:

$ curl -4 icanhazip.com Copy

When you have your server’s IP address, enter it into your browser’s address bar:

http:// your_server_ip

You will see the default Ubuntu 22.04 Apache web page as in the following:

This page indicates that Apache is working correctly. It also includes some basic information about
important Apache files and directory locations.

Step 4 — Managing the Apache Process

Now that you have your web server up and running, let’s review some basic management commands using
systemctl .

To stop your web server, run:

$ sudo systemctl stop apache2 Copy

To start the web server when it is stopped, run:

$ sudo systemctl start apache2 Copy

To stop and then start the service again, run:

$ sudo systemctl restart apache2 Copy

If you are simply making configuration changes, Apache can often reload without dropping connections. To
do this, use the following command:

$ sudo systemctl reload apache2 Copy

By default, Apache is configured to start automatically when the server boots. If this is not what you want,
disable this behavior by running:

$ sudo systemctl disable apache2 Copy

To re-enable the service to start up at boot, run:

$ sudo systemctl enable apache2 Copy

Apache will now start automatically when the server boots again.

Step 5 — Setting Up Virtual Hosts (Recommended)

When using the Apache web server, you can use virtual hosts (similar to server blocks in Nginx) to
encapsulate configuration details and host more than one domain from a single server. We will set up a
domain called your_domain, but you should replace this with your own domain name.

Inf o: If you are setting up a domain name with DigitalOcean, please refer to our Networking Documentation.

Apache on Ubuntu 22.04 has one server block enabled by default that is configured to serve documents
from the /var/www/html directory. While this works well for a single site, it can become unwieldy if you are
hosting multiple sites. Instead of modifying /var/www/html , create a directory structure within /var/www for
a your_domain site, leaving /var/www/html in place as the default directory to be served if a client request
doesn’t match any other sites.
Create the directory for your_domain as follows:

$ sudo mkdir /var/www/ your_domain Copy

Next, assign ownership of the directory to the user you’re currently signed in as with the $USER environment
variable:

$ sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/ your_domain Copy

The permissions of your web root should be correct if you haven’t modified your umask value, which sets
default file permissions. To ensure that your permissions are correct and allow the owner to read, write, and
execute the files while granting only read and execute permissions to groups and others, you can input the
following command:

$ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/ your_domain Copy

Next, create a sample index.html page using nano or your favorite editor:

$ sudo nano /var/www/ your_domain /index.html Copy

Inside, add the following sample HTML

/var/www/your_domain/index.html
<html> Copy
<head>
<title>Welcome to Your_domain !</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Success! The your_domain virtual host is working!</h1>
</body>
</html>

Save and close the file when you are finished. If you’re using nano , you can do this by pressing CTRL + X ,
then Y and ENTER .
In order for Apache to serve this content, it’s necessary to create a virtual host file with the correct
directives. Instead of modifying the default configuration file located at /etc/apache2/sites-
available/000-default.conf directly, make a new one at /etc/apache2/sites-
available/ your_domain .conf :

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/ your_domain .conf Copy

Add in the following configuration block, which is similar to the default, but updated for your new directory
and domain name:

/etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain.conf
<VirtualHost *:80> Copy
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
ServerName your_domain
ServerAlias www.your_domain
DocumentRoot /var/www/ your_domain
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Notice that we’ve updated the DocumentRoot to our new directory and ServerAdmin to an email that the
your_domain site administrator can access. We’ve also added two directives: ServerName , which
establishes the base domain that will match this virtual host definition, and ServerAlias , which defines
further names that will match as if they were the base name.
Save and close the file when you are finished.
Now enable the file with the a2ensite tool:

$ sudo a2ensite your_domain .conf Copy

Disable the default site defined in 000-default.conf :

$ sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf Copy

Next, test for configuration errors:

$ sudo apache2ctl configtest Copy

You should receive the following output:

Output
. . .
Syntax OK

Restart Apache to implement your changes:

$ sudo systemctl restart apache2 Copy

Apache will now be serving your domain name. You can test this by navigating to http:// your_domain ,
where you will see something like the following:

Step 6 – Getting Familiar with Important Apache Files and

Directories
Now that you know how to manage the Apache service itself, you should take a few minutes to familiarize
yourself with a few important directories and files.
Content
/var/www/html The actual web content, which by default only consists of the default Apache page
you saw earlier, is served out of the /var/www/html directory. This can be changed by altering
Apache configuration files.

Server Con guration

/etc/apache2 The Apache configuration directory. All of the Apache configuration files reside here.
/etc/apache2/apache2.conf The main Apache configuration file. This can be modified to make
changes to the Apache global configuration. This file is responsible for loading many of the other files
in the configuration directory.
/etc/apache2/ports.conf This file specifies the ports that Apache will listen on. By default, Apache
listens on port 80 and additionally listens on port 443 when a module providing SSL capabilities is
enabled.
/etc/apache2/sites-available/ The directory where per-site virtual hosts can be stored. Apache
will not use the configuration files found in this directory unless they are linked to the sites-enabled
directory. Typically, all server block configuration is done in this directory and then enabled by linking
to the other directory with the a2ensite command.
/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ The directory where enabled per-site virtual hosts are stored.
Typically, these are created by linking to configuration files found in the sites-available directory
with the a2ensite . Apache reads the configuration files and links found in this directory when it starts
or reloads to compile a complete configuration.
/etc/apache2/conf-available/ , /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/ These directories have the same
relationship as the sites-available and sites-enabled directories but are used to store
configuration fragments that do not belong in a virtual host. Files in the conf-available directory can
be enabled with the a2enconf command and disabled with the a2disconf command.
/etc/apache2/mods-available/ , /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/ These directories contain the
available and enabled modules, respectively. Files ending in .load contain fragments to load specific
modules, while files ending in .conf contain the configuration for those modules. Modules can be
enabled and disabled using the a2enmod and a2dismod commands.

Server Logs
/var/log/apache2/access.log By default, every request to your web server is recorded in this log
file unless Apache is configured to do otherwise.
/var/log/apache2/error.log By default, all errors are recorded in this file. The LogLevel directive in
the Apache configuration specifies how much detail the error logs will contain.

Conclusion
Now that you have your web server installed, you have many options for the type of content you can serve
and the technologies you can use to create a richer experience.
If you’d like to build out a more complete application stack, you can read this article on how to configure a
LAMP stack on Ubuntu 22.04

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About the authors

Erin Glass Author
Senior Manager, DevEd
Open source advocate and lover of education, culture, and community.

Jeanelle Horcasitas Author

Technical Writer
Educator and writer committed to empowering our community by providing access to the
knowledge and tools for making creative ideas into a reality

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