Custom Virtual Host in Apache2 in Ubuntu

cd ~
mkdir public_html

Now for each domain create a folder with following template

 
mkdir -p public_html/domain1.com/{public,private,log,cgi-bin,backup}

NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen 80

Make sure this setting is set either in ports.conf or apache2.conf or httpd.conf or in sites-available/default

Now create the vhost file for domain1.com in /etc/apache2/sites-available/domain1.com

with the following settings

<VirtualHost *:80>
  
  ServerAdmin webmaster@domain1.com
  ServerName  domain1.com
  ServerAlias www.domain1.com


  # Index file and Document Root (where the public files are located)
  DirectoryIndex index.html
  DocumentRoot /home/username/public_html/domain1.com/public


  # Custom log file locations
  LogLevel warn
  ErrorLog  /home/username/public_html/domain1.com/log/error.log
  CustomLog /home/username/public_html/domain1.com/log/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Now to enable the site in sites-enabled

sudo a2ensite domain1.com

and then restart the apache2 server

sudo service apache2 restart

Modify the host file '/etc/hosts' 

127.0.0.1    localhost 

127.0.0.1    domain1.com

 Now set the owner permissions

~/public_html/domain1.com$ sudo chown -R username:www-data cgi-bin log public
~/public_html/domain1.com$ sudo find ./public -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
~/public_html/domain1.com$ sudo find ./public -type f -exec chmod 774 {} \;

likewise for log and cgi-bin

References

1. Apache Virtual Hosts

2. Permissions for /var/www/html 

3. Chmod only to folders and its subfolders