VirtualHost always returns default host with Apache on Ubuntu 14.04

Question

I try to setup a virtual host besides the default localhost. Whenever I try to call my virtual host http://test I get the default Apache2 Index file that sits in the directory of http://localhost. Furthermore apache returns this page still after disabling (a2dissite) both VirtualHost files an reloading apache (service apache2 reload).

What could go wrong that the virtual host is not working?

Configuration:

My directory structure is the following:

/var/www/html                  # Default localhost dir /var/www/html7index.html       # Apache2 default index  /var/www/test                  # HTML dir for the virtual host /var/www/test/index.html       # My "website"  

Content of /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1       localhost 127.0.1.1       Laptop 127.0.0.1       test 

Directory content of /etc/apache2/sites-available:

000-default.conf default-ssl.conf test.conf 

File 000-default.conf:

<VirtualHost localhost:80>         ServerName localhost         ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost         DocumentRoot /var/www/html         ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log         CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined </VirtualHost> 

File test.conf:

<VirtualHost test:80>         ServerAdmin test@localhost         ServerName test         NameVirtualHost test         ServerAlias test         DocumentRoot /var/www/test         ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log         CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined </VirtualHost> 

Answer 1

I was facing this issue, and it turned out I had to disable the default virtual host.

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf 

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Possible Expanation:

According to the apache documentation An In-Depth Discussion of Virtual Host Matching:

[...] If the main server has no ServerName at this point, then the hostname of the machine that httpd is running on is used instead.

That means if the default vhost (commonly 000-default.conf) has no ServerName set - which is the default - Apache will fallback to the hostname of the operating system.

As a result, Apache selects and serves from the default vhost (000-default.conf) even though another user-created vhost with the same ServerName as the machine's hostname is configured.

The reason is that Apache sorts the vhosts alphabetically by filename and chooses the first vhost configuration that matches the requested HTTP Host header. Thus, the 000-default.conf is checked before user-defined vhosts, as they are usually not prefixed with 000-.

Answer 2

tl;dr: Call it with sudo: sudo service apache2 reload

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Looks like the behaviour of service apache2 reload fooled me. See the following log:

user@Laptop:/etc/apache2/sites-available$ sudo a2ensite test.conf  Enabling site test. To activate the new configuration, you need to run:   service apache2 reload user@Laptop:/etc/apache2/sites-available$ service apache2 reload  * Reloading web server apache2                                                  *  user@Laptop:/etc/apache2/sites-available$ 

Try to reach http://test: NOT working

user@Laptop:/etc/apache2/sites-available$ sudo service apache2 reload  * Reloading web server apache2                                                  *  user@Laptop:/etc/apache2/sites-available$ 

Try to reach http://test: WORKING

So, find the difference! The point is that I thought it would've reloaded correctly in the first place. There are no entries in the log files either. Calling it with sudo helped. Is this a bug?