apache default virtual host configuration for www domain name

Question

Here is my apache default configuration for virtual host

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

DocumentRoot /var/www
<Directory />
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>

<Directory "/var/www/mydir">
    AllowOverride FileInfo Limit Options Indexes
   </Directory>
<Directory /var/www/>
    Options Indexes +FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride none
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
    AllowOverride None
    Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn

CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

This works well for http://mydomain.com but not for http://www.mydomain.com How to serve my domain with www ?

This problem is only for default domains, my other domains work for both with this config file

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

DocumentRoot /var/www/otherdomain

ServerSignature Off
<Directory />
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/otherdomain>
    Options Indexes +FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride all
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>

# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/otherdomain.com_access.log combined
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/otherdomain.com_error.log
</VirtualHost>

Solution

You have to tell apache the server names of each virtualhost using the ServerName and ServerAlias parameters.

Like:

<Virtualhost *:80>
    ServerName mydomain.com
    ServerAlias www.mydomain.com whatever.mydomain.com
    ...
</Virtualhost>

Comments

[Jenny D]

What do you mean by "not working"? What do you expect to happen, what happens instead, and what do the logs say?

[atyagi]

If I access defaultdomain.com then browser shows "server not found" error. It works for defaultdomain.com

[lg.]

Maybe it is a stupid question, but...DNS record for www is properly configured?

[atyagi]

Please check default config file code, it has no ServerName <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost DocumentRoot /var/www .... serverAlias works for otherdomain config, but there is no servername in default so how to put serverAlias there?

[Sean Brill]

besides the serverconfig, you also have to make sure that your DNS is pointing to the right IPs

[atyagi]

DNS is pointing to correct IP. It should be simple but seems I am missing something. All other domain urls are working with ServerName and ServerAlias but there is no ServerName in default config so I can not put any ServerAlias. Still thanks for your help.

[Jenny D]

If this is the default domain, then all requests that don't match any other virtualhost will go to that domain by default, so in this particular case there's no need to enter any ServerAlias.