6.7 Virtual Hosts

A very common use of FreeBSD is virtual site hosting, where one server appears to the network as many servers. This is achieved by assigning multiple network addresses to a single interface.

A given network interface has one ``real'' address, and may have any number of ``alias'' addresses. These aliases are normally added by placing alias entries in /etc/rc.conf.

An alias entry for the interface fxp0 looks like:

    ifconfig_fxp0_alias0="inet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx netmask xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"

Note that alias entries must start with alias0 and proceed upwards in order, (for example, _alias1, _alias2, and so on). The configuration process will stop at the first missing number.

The calculation of alias netmasks is important, but fortunately quite simple. For a given interface, there must be one address which correctly represents the network's netmask. Any other addresses which fall within this network must have a netmask of all 1's.

For example, consider the case where the fxp0 interface is connected to two networks, the 10.1.1.0 network with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 and the 202.0.75.16 network with a netmask of 255.255.255.240. We want the system to appear at 10.1.1.1 through 10.1.1.5 and at 202.0.75.17 through 202.0.75.20.

The following entries configure the adapter correctly for this arrangement:

     ifconfig_fxp0="inet 10.1.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0"
     ifconfig_fxp0_alias0="inet 10.1.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.255"
     ifconfig_fxp0_alias1="inet 10.1.1.3 netmask 255.255.255.255"
     ifconfig_fxp0_alias2="inet 10.1.1.4 netmask 255.255.255.255"
     ifconfig_fxp0_alias3="inet 10.1.1.5 netmask 255.255.255.255"
     ifconfig_fxp0_alias4="inet 202.0.75.17 netmask 255.255.255.240"
     ifconfig_fxp0_alias5="inet 202.0.75.18 netmask 255.255.255.255"
     ifconfig_fxp0_alias6="inet 202.0.75.19 netmask 255.255.255.255"
     ifconfig_fxp0_alias7="inet 202.0.75.20 netmask 255.255.255.255"