Apache setup problem

[ingeva]

The Apache Virtual Hosts documentation has some examples I've found useful in the past.

I have used that documentation and examples as starting points,
but especially the documentation is incredibly hard to put into practice,
and the error messages are more or less cryptic.

I think apache must be the worst program I have ever worked with.
So far I've tried and retried for a couple of weeks, and the closest I've
been was to get "It works" regardless of what site I tried to open.

[ingeva]

Listen 127.0.0.1:80

Then only browsers running on the local machine would be able to access the server.

Right now it would be OK to only access it from this computer, but I plan
to set up an older computer as a file and web server, only to be access from
the LAN.

[MJN]

If you're struggling it is probably a sign that you are trying to run before you can walk.

Stick to getting a single site up first and once you're happy with that then move on to adding an additional host. Trying to get ten sites working when you can't do one is surely asking for trouble.

Mathew

[Ximbiot]

No output from the lsof command, so I guess no one is using port 80.

I think the "no listening sockets available" error may have to do with the fact that you can't listen on an IP unless it is actually bound to an address. So, unlike connection via a client, listening on IPs like 127.0.0.2 is only going to work if you have explicitly bound that IP to the loopback interface.

I haven't tried using the same IP for all domains, but I could try that.
In that case, what should be in the hosts file?

You can alias all the IPs to 127.0.0.1. Only the first will come up in a reverse-lookup, but I don't think this should affect you. /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1 intertrafico anotherhost yetanother yya

...and so on.

[Ximbiot]

Right now it would be OK to only access it from this computer, but I plan
to set up an older computer as a file and web server, only to be access from
the LAN.

Then `Listen 80' should be what you want, to ask Apache to listen on all available interfaces.

[Ximbiot]

the closest I've
been was to get "It works" regardless of what site I tried to open.

Do as Matthew suggests. If you can get an "It works" message, then first start by putting the data you want to serve in the location "It works" says it is serving. Once you can see that, then try changing the location to where you really want to serve the data from. Once you have that working, then try adding additional virtual servers at new locations.

[mbeach]

I believe by default /etc/apache2/ports.conf is included after httpd.conf, so perhaps make sure nothing in ports.conf is overwriting what you've placed in httpd.conf.

[mbeach]

also, if I understand what you are trying to do - ie test sites internally, I think your httpd.conf file should be empty, ports.conf should have one line "Listen 80", your virtual host files should contain something like:

      1 NameVirtualHost *
      2 <VirtualHost *>
      3     ServerName com.someInternalDomain1

Then as Ximbiot said each machines host's file that you are testing from should have something like:

10.10.10.1 intertrafico com.someInternalDomain1 yetanother yya

assuming 10.10.10.1 is the webserver.

if you are going to test from the webserver itself, then you would probably want to change the host file on the webserver as well to be as Ximbiot suggested.

[ingeva]

Do as Matthew suggests. If you can get an "It works" message, then first start by putting the data you want to serve in the location "It works" says it is serving. Once you can see that, then try changing the location to where you really want to serve the data from. Once you have that working, then try adding additional virtual servers at new locations.

That's what I did.

[ingeva]

also, if I understand what you are trying to do - ie test sites internally, I think your httpd.conf file should be empty, ports.conf should have one line "Listen 80", your virtual host files should contain something like:

      1 NameVirtualHost *
      2 <VirtualHost *>
      3     ServerName com.someInternalDomain1

Then as Ximbiot said each machines host's file that you are testing from should have something like:

10.10.10.1 intertrafico com.someInternalDomain1 yetanother yya

assuming 10.10.10.1 is the webserver.

if you are going to test from the webserver itself, then you would probably want to change the host file on the webserver as well to be as Ximbiot suggested.

Looks sensible. I'll try that.
It looks like the IP-address of the server computer is not guaranteed. The router sets up the addresses, and this router doesn't seem to accept a fixed setup like binding an IP address to a MAC address. However, right now it has the IP defined in the hosts file, and if that's sufficient I might make it work.
I won't be able to test this until tomorrow (It's late here now).