Running multiple virtual hosts

Question

I want to run multiple domains on my server (only two at the moment). I already changed both nameservers to point to my server.

In the apache2.conf file I enabled "included sites-enabled".

My ports.conf file looks as follows

NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen 80
Listen 443
<VirtualHost xx.xx.xx.xx:443>
    SSLEngine On
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    ServerName firstDomain.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/
    ErrorLog /var/log/error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

This is the setting for my main page.

My httpd.conf file looks like this

ServerName firstDomain.com
<VirtualHost xx.xx.xx.xx:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
ServerName firstDomain.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/
ErrorLog /var/log/error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName secondDomain.com
    ServerAlias *.secondDomain.com
    DocumentRoot /home/user/www/secondDomain.com/htdocs
</VirtualHost>
Options -Indexes All FollowSymLinks MultiViews

Last but not least my "secondDomain" file in "sites-avaiable"

<VirtualHost secondDomain.com>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    ServerName  secondDomain.com
    # Indexes + Directory Root.
    DirectoryIndex index.html
    DocumentRoot /home/user/www/secondDomain/htdocs/
    # CGI Directory
    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /home/user/www/seoncDomain/cgi-bin/
    <Location /cgi-bin>
            Options +ExecCGI
    </Location>
    # Logfiles
    ErrorLog  /home/user/www/secondDomain/logs/error.log
    CustomLog /home/user/www/secondDomain/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

I also get an error message, everytime I restart the apache server, saying that VirtualHosts xx.xx.xx.xx:80 overlaps with VirtualHosts xx.xx.xx.xx:80.

When I call my secondDomain.com only the firstDomain.com pops up. It seems like the mapping is wrong.

apachectl -t output:

[warn] VirtualHost xx.xx.xx.xx:80 overlaps with VirtualHost xx.xx.xx.xx:80, the first has   precedence, perhaps you need a NameVirtualHost directive
Syntax OK

apache2ctl -S output:

[Wed Feb 29 02:05:17 2012] [warn] VirtualHost xx.xx.xx.xx:80 overlaps with VirtualHost xx.xx.xx.xx:80, the first has precedence, perhaps you need a NameVirtualHost directive
VirtualHost configuration:
127.0.0.1:*           secondDomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/secondDomain.com:1)
xx.xx.xx.xx:443       firstDomain.com (/etc/apache2/ports.conf:12)
xx.xx.xx.xx:80        firstDomain.com (/etc/apache2/httpd.conf:3)
wildcard NameVirtualHosts and _default_ servers:
*:80                   is a NameVirtualHost
     default server secondDomain.com (/etc/apache2/httpd.conf:11)
     port 80 namevhost secondDomain.com (/etc/apache2/httpd.conf:11)
     port 80 namevhost firstDomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:1)
     port 80 namevhost firstDomain.com (/etc/apache2/apache2.conf:241)
     port 80 namevhost secondDomain.com (/etc/apache2/apache2.conf:249)
Syntax OK

Wordpress is installed through apt-get. I have a symlink in /var/www/ which points to /usr/share/wordpress and activated in /etc/apache2/sites-available and a2ensite.

Solution 1

You have a NameVirtualHost directive, but you're not using it. You're specifying the IP address and/or the hostname in your <VirtualHost> declaration - that's not what you want.

Change:

<VirtualHost xx.xx.xx.xx:80>

and

<VirtualHost secondDomain.com>

To both be simply:

<VirtualHost *:80>

Solution 2

You may try next:

1. Move firstDomain.com virtual host declaration to sites-available/firstDomain.
2. Remove everything from httpd.conf (you may try to define ServerName in apache2.conf)
3. Ensure that you have sites-available/firstDomain and sites-available/secondDomain symlinked to sites-enabled/firstDomain and sites-enabled/secondDomain respectively.

Comments

[qweet]

can you run apachectl -t and paste any errors you see?

[cherrun]

edited post with apachectl -t output.

[cherrun]

This fixed the error output, when calling apachectl -t, but somehow now the firstdomain.com maps to my wordpress install, which lies in www/wordpress, although that's not what I want. Therefore I changed the values back to the IP address. I think something is completely messed up with my settings.

[ravi yarlagadda]

Where's your wordpress configured? And what output do you get from apache2ctl -S?

[cherrun]

edited first post with output.

[ravi yarlagadda]

@cherrun You have an three total vhosts that are configured to be firstdomain.com; the one in your httpd.conf file (which is empty by default in the Debian packaging that you're using) is getting precedence over the ones in apache2.conf and sites-available/default. Get rid of the copies that shouldn't exist, and set all port 80 vhosts to the correct host specification as outlined in my answer. You have vhost definitions sprinkled all over the place: ports.conf, httpd.conf, and apache2.conf, which is making things a lot more complicated than they need to be.

[cherrun]

Which one is the correct file to write all the vhosts to? Is it alright that the ports.conf only have the Listen 80 and 443 option without specifying further vhosts?

[ravi yarlagadda]

Yes, that's all ports.conf is for. You can really choose however you want to set it up, but if you want to follow the Debian package's conventions, create a new file for each vhost within /etc/sites-available, then when you want to turn it on use a2ensite filename to make a symlink for it in /etc/sites-enabled.

[ravi yarlagadda]

If you change that, it will just use the one in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default instead. You should delete the duplicate host definitions first.