Lately I ran into a problem with name based virtual hosting. In Apache you have the option of running multiple domains from one IP using name based virtual hosts. The host name is sent with the HTTP request and Apache determines the correct DocumentRoot and folder permissions. Setting up virtual hosting is relatively easy and the Apache documentation on it can be found here. Now I had several domains that needed secure SSL communication, but there is a problem…

I needed a servlet container to start learning about JSP’s and Servlets, and the only two that I had heard of at the time were Bea WebLogic and Apache Tomcat. Since I run FreeBSD and trust Apache, I decided to go with Tomcat.