[Resolved] need help with apache's namebased vhosts

jacksonpt

I've got 2 domain names, 1 server and 2 websites. Both sites live on the one server, one site is setup for each domain name.

I setup name based virtual hosts on my apache server. When I try to access the domain names, everything works great. However, when I try to acess the server via it's IP, it doesn't work.

I read in the apache docs that this is normal. So I setup a vhost for the IP address... same exact way I did it for the domain names, but rather than using a domain name, I used the IP. That didn't seem to work.

Is it possible to still access the server via IP address (from a browser) while using name based vhosts?

Sxooter

Apache 1.3 or 2.0?

For 1.3 there's a default server that gets served up when you don't ask for a name it knows on the IP the server is on. And i think it pretty much has to be setup to work right, but it's been a couple years since I setup a large named virtual host based machine.

I don't know about 2.0, but would be willing to take a look at the pertinant parts of your .conf files.

jacksonpt

Apache 2

Here's the vhost section from my httpd.conf. If you want/need other pieces of code, let me know. I specified absolute paths for DocumentRoot because when I had relative paths I couldn't get the directory structure to work... I'm assuming it's because I don't know where /www/mysite starts - i.e. the parent directory of /www. Thanks for the help.

 NameVirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx


<VirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx>
  ServerName [url]www.trailaddict.com[/url]
  DocumentRoot C:/Apache2/htdocs/www/wheel
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx>
  ServerName [url]www.cycle-cny.com[/url]
  DocumentRoot C:/Apache2/htdocs/www/ride
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx>
  ServerName 128.xxx.xxx.xxx
  DocumentRoot C:/Apache2/htdocs
</VirtualHost>

Sxooter

There should be a set of directives for setting up a server that is the "main" sever and not in a virtual host container. If you've deleted it just copy it out of the default httpd.conf and add it back in or something like that.

jacksonpt

I haven't deleted anything, so they should still be there...

:::EDIT:::

Is this what you're referring to? There are several others, but these seem to be the relevant ones, particulaly the last couple

ServerAdmin [email]jtaylor@binghamton.edu[/email]
ServerName 128.xxx.xxx.xxx:80
UseCanonicalName Off
DocumentRoot "C:/Apache2/htdocs"
AccessFileName .htaccess
<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory "C:/Apache2/htdocs">
HostnameLookups Off

jacksonpt

OK, I got things working...

Apparently what was happening was that even though I specified a vhost for the IP address, when I put the IP address into a browser, I was seeing the first defined vhost, regardless of which one it was. So I changed the order, put the IP vhost first, and the doman vhosts after - everything seems to be working great now. Here's what I ended up with...

NameVirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx

<VirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx>
ServerName 128.xxx.xxx.xxx
DocumentRoot C:/Apache2/htdocs
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx>
ServerName www.domain1.com
DocumentRoot C:/Apache2/htdocs/www/wheel
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx>
ServerName domain1.com
DocumentRoot C:/Apache2/htdocs/www/wheel
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx>
ServerName www.domain2.com
DocumentRoot C:/Apache2/htdocs/www/ride
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 128.xxx.xxx.xxx>
ServerName domain2.com
DocumentRoot C:/Apache2/htdocs/www/ride
</VirtualHost>

I defined two vhosts for each domain name to handle www.domain.com and domain.com.

So, all this appears to be working great. My question... is this a good way of doing it? I feel like I'm cutting corners and really hacking together a solution. That's OK becuase it works, but I feel like it's just a matter of time before I discover some glith because of the way I have set things up. Is there a better way to do?

Sxooter

Well, it'll probably work. The proper way is to define the "master" apache server so that if you make a new dns alias and point at the box, you'll get the default page until a virtual server is setup.

With your current setup, I'm not sure what would happen, but I don't think it's a particularly big deal either.

jacksonpt

I see what you mean - I'll take a look at that this afternoon.

Thanks for the help.

Sxooter

Don't get too worked up over it. Apache is a strange and wonderful beast, and if it's working the way you want it for now, then it's no big priority to get the setup just so.

jacksonpt

That's my thinking at this point. Everything seems to be working smoothly, so I'm going to start working on other higher priority things. When I've got some spare time I'll go back and take another look at this. But for now, I've got some other things I need to get finished this morning.