Solved: Can I Run Multiple Websites On A Single Dedicated Server,...

Posted on Jan 2

• Originally published at wp.me

TL;DR: Running multiple websites on a single dedicated server is a cost-effective strategy to combat underutilization and management overhead. Solutions like reverse proxies, containerization, or control panels enable efficient consolidation and centralized management while maintaining performance, security, and reliability for all hosted applications.

Running multiple websites on a single dedicated server is not only possible but often a cost-effective strategy for optimizing resource utilization. This guide explores effective strategies and best practices for securely and efficiently managing diverse web applications on one server.

As IT professionals, we often encounter scenarios where dedicated server resources are not fully leveraged, or conversely, where a growing portfolio of web projects leads to an unmanageable sprawl of individual servers. These challenges typically manifest as:

The goal is to consolidate, streamline, and centralize management while maintaining performance, security, and reliability for all hosted applications.

A reverse proxy acts as an intermediary for client requests to services in a backend network. When a client makes a request, the reverse proxy intercepts it, inspects the request (e.g., the hostname in the Host header), and then forwards it to the appropriate backend server or application. This approach allows a single server to listen on standard HTTP/S ports (80/443) and intelligently route traffic to different websites or web applications running on the same machine, often on different internal ports.

Virtual hosting, an integral part of this solution, allows a single web server (like Nginx or Apache) to host multiple domains on the same IP address. Each domain gets its own configuration block, defining its document root, server name, logs, and other specific settings.

Let’s consider a scenario where you want to host three sites:

First, ensure Nginx is installed and running. Configuration files are typically found in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ and symlinked to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/.

Assuming PHP-FPM is installed and listening on unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock (or a similar path), and WordPress files are in /var/www/blog.example.org/public_html.

Source: Dev.to