How to install Apache on Ubuntu

20.04 LTS
Author: Vivek Gite Last updated: November 11, 2020 

H ow do I install the Apache on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Linux server?

The Apache (also known as the “HTTPD”) web server is one of the most
popular web servers for serving dynamic and static web pages. It is free and
open-source software released under Apache License 2.0. Let us see how to
install and the Apache on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Linux server.
Tutorial requirements

Requirements Ubuntu Linux

Root privileges Yes

Difficulty Easy

Est. reading time 10m

Table of contents
 1 Installing Apache 2
 2 Apache 2 service management
 3 UFW Firewall configuration
 4 Find server IP address
 5 Test Apache 2
 6 Configuring Apache 2
 7 Conclusion
How to install Apache on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Make sure your system is up to date and patched. To do that, type the
following apt command:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 1 – Installing Apache 2 server

Now that system updated with the latest patches, it is time to install Apache 2
software. In other words, type the following command and press the [Enter]
key:
sudo apt install apache2
Step 2 – Make sure Apache service started on boot
We are going to use the systemctl command as follows to enable the
apache2.service:
sudo systemctl is-enabled apache2.service
If not enabled, enable it, run:
sudo systemctl enable apache2.service

Managing Apache 2 service on Ubuntu cloud server

To start, stop, restart and then find the service status again use the following
commands.

Start the apache2 server

sudo systemctl start apache2.service
Stop the apache2 server
sudo systemctl stop apache2.service
Restart the apache2 server
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
Reload the apache2 server gracefully
sudo systemctl reload apache2.service
Find the status of apache2 server
sudo systemctl status apache2.service
* apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2020-05-05 19:49:41 UTC; 7min ago
Docs: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/
Main PID: 1766 (apache2)
Tasks: 54 (limit: 4915)
Memory: 6.5M
 CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
??1766 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
??1767 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
??1768 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
 
May 05 19:49:41 db-host systemd[1]: Starting The Apache HTTP Server...
May 05 19:49:41 db-host apachectl[1765]: AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the
server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally
to suppress this message
May 05 19:49:41 db-host systemd[1]: Started The Apache HTTP Server.

Step 3 – Open the Apache port 80 and 443 using UFW

firewall
Execute the following ufw command to port TCP port 80 and 443 for everyone
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp comment 'accept Apache'
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp comment 'accept HTTPS connections'
Verify it:
sudo ufw status
Sample outputs:
Status: active

To Action From

-- ------ ----

10.105.28.158 22/tcp ALLOW 192.168.2.0/24

80/tcp ALLOW Anywhere #

accept Apache

443/tcp ALLOW Anywhere #

accept HTTPS connections

80/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6) #

accept Apache
443/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6) #
accept HTTPS connections

See “How To Configure Firewall with UFW on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS” for more
info.

Step 4 – Find your Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server IP address

Run any one of the following command:
hostname -I
ip a
ip a s eth0
My IP Address:
10.105.28.158

You can also use the dig command/host command as follows to find your
public IPv4/IPv6 address from the CLI:
dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com
See How To Find My Public IP Address From Command Line On a Linux for
more info.

Step 5 – Test your Apache 2 installation on Ubuntu

At this stage you can use the curl command as follows:
curl -I http://10.105.28.158
Sample outputs:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Date: Tue, 05 May 2020 20:08:32 GMT

Server: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu)

Last-Modified: Tue, 05 May 2020 19:49:22 GMT

ETag: "2aa6-5a4ebf1b4b8bf"

Accept-Ranges: bytes

Content-Length: 10918

Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Type: text/html

Another option is to fire a web browser such as Chrome or Firefox and type
the URL as follows:
http://your-server-ip
http://10.105.28.158
Basic configuration
Edit the /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file, run:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
At least set ServerName to 127.0.0.1 or actual name such as your-dot-com or
server IP address:
ServerName 10.105.28.9
Save and close the file. Next, edit the /etc/apache2/ports.conf file that include
list of ports to listen on Ubuntu box:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/ports.conf
By default, the Apache version 2 on Ubuntu Linux will listen on the TCP port
80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS). There is no need to change them; however, if
you run many sites in Linux containers, then we change ports as follows:
########################################################################################
## Typically you don't have to change the defaults. These are for advance usage/users ##
########################################################################################
# Change HTTP port 80 to 86
Listen 86
 
# Change HTTPS port 443 to 449
<IfModule ssl_module>
Listen 449
</IfModule>
 
<IfModule mod_gnutls.c>
Listen 449
</IfModule>

You must update your virtual host/domain config to match the port number
listed in ports.conf.

Step 6 – Configuring Apache 2 virtual hosts

Create a config file for your domain as follows:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/my-domain-name.conf
Append the following config:
# Replace my-domain-name-here with actual domain name such as cyberciti.biz #
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@my-domain-name-here
ServerName my-domain-name-here
ServerAlias www.my-domain-name-here
DocumentRoot /home/my-domain-name-here/html
DirectoryIndex index.html
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/my-domain-name-here-error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/my-domain-name-here-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
<Directory /home/my-domain-name-here/html>
 Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Require all granted
</Directory>

Create a new Ubuntu user for website

Type the following useradd commandsudo useradd -d /home/my-domain-name-
here -m -k /dev/null -s /usr/sbin/nologin usernamehere
Where,
 -d /home/my-domain-name-here  : Set home directory of the new account
to serve documets.
 -m  : Make sure we create the user’s home directory set by the  -

d  option.
 -k /dev/null  : Avoid creating dot files for Apache virtual domain
DocumentRoot which can expose senstive information by using
the /dev/null as alternative skeleton directory.
 -s /usr/sbin/nologin  : Set login shell of the new account to
/usr/sbin/nologin, so that web server user can not login into our
system using the ssh or any other method. Again this is a security
feature.
 usernamehere  : User name that will store files for our virtual domain
Lock the Linux user account, enter:
sudo passwd -l usernamehere
Create html folder using the mkdir command:
sudo mkdir -pv /home/my-domain-name-here/html
Create a sample html page as follows:
sudo nano /home/my-domain-name-here/html/index.html
<html>
<head>
<title>www.cyberciti.biz - welcome</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>www.cyberciti.biz</h2>
<p>This is a test page running on:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS</li>
<li>Apache 2.x</li>
</ul>
 <hr>
<small>webmaster@cyberciti.biz</small>
</body>
</html>

Set permission using the chown command:

sudo chown -R usernamehere:usernamehere /home/my-domain-name-here/
Turn on newly created virtual domain, run:
sudo a2ensite my-domain-name.conf
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
Sample outputs:

Enabling site my-domain-name.conf.

To activate the new configuration, you need to run:

systemctl reload apache2

Test config:
sudo apache2ctl configtest

You must get “Syntax OK” message and then restart the Apache server on
Ubuntu Linux:
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Set your domains’s A and AAAA records to server’s public IPv4/IPv6 address
and test it:
http://my-domain-name-here
http://www.cyberciti.biz