Properly Hosting Multiple Sites on VDS

I'm going to be moving about 7-10 websites (5-8 with Databases - MySQL) onto our new Virtual Private Server. I'm curious what the best way to host many sites on a single server is though. Do I create a directory for each site immediately within my root directory, and then point the domain names for each site to http://123.123.123.123/siteDirectory - or is there a more appropriate way to do this?

I'm very interested in maintining control over how many concurent connections each site can have at any given time - would I be able to do that on the directory-level, or am I required to limit the concurrent-connections to the VPS itself?

From serverfault Aristotle

• This is your Godaddy CentOS VDS Right? Have you played around with SSH'ing to it yet? It looks like it comes with Apache 2.0

  Apache does not natively support setting resources limits for each Vhost (site). There may be an apache module available that facilitates this need. In regards to controlling concurrent connections on a global level:

  • SSH to your VDS using Putty (assuming your using windows)
  • nano /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf
  • If nano is not installed, run yum install nano
  • modify the MaxClients parameter, if it is not there add it to the end of the file (ie. MaxClients 150)
  • Restart apache: /etc/init.d/httpd restart

  As you know your VDS comes with a front-end control panel for administration: The Simple Control Panel. If you add a domain through that control panel i believe it will create the "document root" for you in the location it deems best. You could also create your 7-10 site directories "domain1.com" "domain2.com", within a "sites" folder in the root. You then specify those directories as the document roots within each sites domain properties within the Control Panel. Wether you throw them in root or /sites/ is simply a matter of preference.

  If you want more granular control and to learn about administering a webserver, you could loose the Simple control panel entirely. slicehost has lots of articles/tutorials on setting up apache for multiple sites/etc. You could use those to get started even though you host with godaddy.

  From iainlbc