Two VirtualHost websites do not work together under Apache 2.4

I'm running Apache 2.4 under Ubuntu 18.04

I'm having this problem where all addresses I type onto the browser bar get redirected to one of the two websites I have configured (in this case, whenever I type an address that should redirect to other-site, I get shown the website under jekyll only.)

For example:

• typing jekyll on the browser shows me the jekyll website, as expected
• typing other-site on the browser also shows me the jekyll website, even though there is another VirtualHost listening on that name

I have these two separate sites configured as VHosts under /etc/apache2/sites-available (both of them enabled via a2ensite)

• jekyll.conf

  <VirtualHost *:80> DirectoryIndex index.html DocumentRoot /var/www/jekyll/_site LimitRequestFieldSize 48000 <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> <Directory /var/www/jekyll/_site> AllowOverride All Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> <Directory /var/www/jekyll/_site/> Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> ServerName jekyll ServerName ServerName ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
  </VirtualHost>

• other-site.conf

  <VirtualHost *:80> DirectoryIndex index.html DocumentRoot /var/www/other-site/_site LimitRequestFieldSize 48000 <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> <Directory /var/www/other-site/_site> AllowOverride All Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> <Directory /var/www/other-site/_site/> Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> ServerName other-site ServerName ServerName ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
  </VirtualHost>

I have also added these entries to /etc/hosts so that localhost gets redirected to each site:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 localhost/jekyll
127.0.0.1 localhost/other-site
127.0.0.1 jekyll
127.0.0.1 other-site
127.0.1.1 felipe-Inspiron-7559

1 Answer

The ServerName attribute in your Apache configuration files needn't be repeated, as each subsequent line will replace the previous ones.

Instead, you can use ServerName with ServerAlias like this:

ServerName jekyll
ServerAlias jekyll.local *.jekyll *.jekyll.local

Note that this is illogical:

127.0.0.1 localhost/jekyll
127.0.0.1 localhost/other-site

These are not domains (or subdomains), but paths under localhost. As a result, only localhost will be observed. This is why I did not include it in the Apache config as noted above.

So, with this in mind, you can have three Apache configuration files:

⇢ 000-jekyll.conf

<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost ServerName jekyll ServerAlias jekyll.local *.jekyll *.jekyll.local DirectoryIndex index.html DocumentRoot /var/www/jekyll/_site LimitRequestFieldSize 48000 <Directory /var/www/jekyll/_site> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/jekyll-error.log CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/jekyll-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

⇢ 001-other.conf

<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost ServerName other-site ServerAlias other-site.local *.other-site *.other-site.local DirectoryIndex index.html DocumentRoot /var/www/other-site/_site LimitRequestFieldSize 48000 <Directory /var/www/other-site/_site> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/other-error.log CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/other-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

⇢ 999-default.conf

<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost ServerName localhost ServerAlias *.localhost * *.* DirectoryIndex index.html DocumentRoot /var/www LimitRequestFieldSize 48000 <Directory /var/www> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/local-error.log CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/local-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Apache processes traffic based on the order of the configuration files. So any domain matching the ones specified in 000-jekyll.conf will be handled by that file. If no matches are found, then 001-other.conf will be checked. If no matches are found, then 999-default.conf will be used. Note the ServerAlias in the 999-default.conf file and how it's relying on wide-open wildcards. This means that it will be treated as a catch-all for the traffic that does not match defined config files.

^{Note: The Apache configuration files were streamlined to eliminate irrelevant Directory blocks and to have each host use their own error logs.}