Right maybe someone here can help me,

I know enough about unix/linux to get around, edit files, read mail,
use slrn etc. And when it comes to installing a Apache/PHP/Mysql
and all other things assosiated with LAMP I pretty well up on to.

Now I realised recently I know hardly anything about networking
and hosting on Linux.

So I have a dedicated server and I have a few domain names of my
own. I want to host two of these non miission critical sites on
the server as a way of learning. I have apache up and running
and everything works fine at myaccount[dot]myhostingcompany[dot]com.

What steps do I need to take to set up a different domain
on this server (Virtual Hosts??). For example I have a
domain name (eg www[dot]example[dot]com) that I have parked with
network solutions. I have a website done for it on
myaccount[dot]myhostingcompany[dot]com/example/ .

How do I go about changing where the www[dot]example[dot]com points too?

I realise this is possibly a long proceedure, so not
expecting people to give me step by step instructions.
But a list of the general steps would help allot.

Also I read a bit about this but seemed to be going around
in circles. I did see something about problems if I wanted
to use SSL(https : / /www[dot]example[dot]com) with virtual hosts by domain
name allthough I'm not sure of the details. This could be a
problem though as I need to be able to use SSL.

Thanks in advance,
derek

To go about changing where a domain points to you'll need to modify the DNS entries. Since the domain is currently parked, I'm assuming Network Solutions is handling the DNS, and you'll need to go in through the admin interface at network solutions and change the DNS record for www in that domain. How exactly you do this depends on how Network Solutions has things set up. If you're just parking the domain, they may not give you full DNS control. Assuming you get the DNS set, you need to modify Apache to accept connections for request made to it. Since you said you're willing to do a bit of work, google on name based virtual hosting and you should find a lot of info. This is controlled by the <VirtualHost *></VirtualHost> tags in the Apache config file, assuming you're doing name based virtual hosting.

As you have read, name based virtual hosting does not work with SSL. Don't panic, you can still virtually host multiple domains on your server and use SSL on all of them, but they'll either all have to share a common "secure" domain, or you'll need to acquire an extra IP address for each domain you want to be able to use SSL and configure your server's ethernet card to listen for traffic sent to all those addresses.

thanks, been very helpfull. I'm going to set it up as a virtual server by domain name first. i'll try sort the ssl stuff then after it is up and running for a while.

Just a little extra information:

If you dont have total DNS Control, you might look into moving your Domain to a dynamic DNS (like www.zonedit.com) even if you have a static ip... This way, you manage the DNS of your domain as you wich.... They even support MX records etc...