a2ensite - Error! Site does not exist

**Toriku** · January 2nd, 2013

when I run a2ensite with "a2ensite www.example.com"I get the error

ERROR: Site www.example.com does not exist!

I've added a file in the sites-enabled folder in /etc/apache2/sitesenabled
I've added a site in /var/www/www.example.com/

I've even tried running a2ensite in each of the folders...
running a2ensite and pointing it to the file in the enabled-sites folder

a2ensite /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/www.example.com

gives the error:

ERROR: No site found matching /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/www.example.com!

This is my www.example.com file in sites-enabled:

<VirtualHost *>
ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
ServerName www.example.com
ServerAlias example.com

# Indexes + Directory Root.
DirectoryIndex index.html
DocumentRoot /var/www/www.example.com/
</VirtualHost>

Where have I gone wrong?

**lisati** · January 2nd, 2013

I believe that /etc/apache2/sites-available is the default for containing the relevant configuration files, and then a2ensite creates the proper link/files in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled

**Toriku** · January 2nd, 2013

I just tried moving it over and running it again, but I get the same error

**volkswagner** · January 2nd, 2013

What is the output of the following:

Code:

ls -l /etc/apache2/sites-available

If you have a file called "www.example.com", then simply run:

Code:

sudo a2ensite www.example.com

You should not need to point a2ensite at the entire directory tree, Apache2 will specifically look in /etc/apache2/sites-available.

**dapleh** · August 6th, 2013

I know this thread is a little bit older...

but I had the same problem and came to this place. Renaming the file to example.conf did the job for me; so the .conf extension seemed to be necessary...

**DarkDisaster** · October 18th, 2013

Originally Posted by dapleh

I know this thread is a little bit older...

but I had the same problem and came to this place. Renaming the file to example.conf did the job for me; so the .conf extension seemed to be necessary...

Never too old, thanks

**SeijiSensei** · October 18th, 2013

That's because the files in sites-enabled are included in the configuration by this directive in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf:

Code:

# Include the virtual host configurations:
IncludeOptional sites-enabled/*.conf

It only reads files matching *.conf.

**cppege-david-9ei9ny** · November 25th, 2013

This seems to be quite a recent change in Ubuntu and caused me quite a bit of head-scratching. If you are on 12.10 then the virtual host file does not have to end in .conf but by 13.10 it does.

**Warren_Parker** · May 25th, 2014

I kinda feel compelled to make mention of this because I have been helped by this thread on more than one occasion.

It's May 2014 and Ubuntu 14.04 has been out for a little while. Navigate to /etc/apache2/sites-available and see what's there. In the past the default website file has just been named "default" while later it was "default.conf" yet now it is "000-default.conf."

"sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf" disables the default web site, allowing you to promote another one in its place.

Hope this helps!

Warren

**stratoscape** · June 12th, 2014

Originally Posted by Warren_Parker

"sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf" disables the default web site, allowing you to promote another one in its place.

Thank you for leaving this update, everyone left "000-" part out of the instructions (...ugh)
I also needed to add the .conf extension to promote the other site that I replaced it with "sudo a2ensite exampleAltSite.conf"

thanks for posting this