The Secure Web Server Virtual Host; Additional Resources - Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 4.5.0 Reference Manual

8.2. The Secure Web Server Virtual Host

By default, the Apache HTTP Server is configured as both a non-secure and a secure server.
Both the non-secure and secure servers use the same IP address and hostname, but listen on
different ports: 80 and 443 respectively. This enables both non-secure and secure
communications to take place simultaneously.
One aspect of SSL enhanced HTTP transmissions is that they are more resource intensive than
the standard HTTP protocol, so a secure server cannot serve as many pages per second. For
this reason, it is often a good idea to minimize the information available from the secure server,
especially on a high traffic website.
Important
Do not use name-based virtual hosts in conjunction with a secure Web server as
the SSL handshake occurs before the HTTP request identifies the appropriate
name-based virtual host. Name-based virtual hosts only work with the
non-secure Web server.
The configuration directives for the secure server are contained within virtual host tags in the
/etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf
By default, both the secure and the non-secure Web servers share the same
is recommended that a different
To stop the non-secure Web server from accepting connections, comment out the line in
which reads
httpd.conf
When finished, the line looks like the following example:
#Listen 80
For more information on configuring an SSL enhanced Web server, refer to the chapter titled
Apache HTTP Secure Server Configuration in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux System
Administration Guide. For advanced configuration tips, refer to the Apache Software Foundation
documentation available online at the following URLs:
• http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/ssl/
• http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/vhosts/

9. Additional Resources

To learn more about the Apache HTTP Server, refer to the following resources.
file.
DocumentRoot
by placing a hash mark (
Listen 80
be made available for the secure Web server.
) at the beginning of the line.
#
Additional Resources
. It
DocumentRoot
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