Virtual host errors, warnings, and issues on Ubuntu

Question

I probably have something set up wrong. Seems I always have problems trying to configure my Virtual Hosts correctly.

I'm getting this error after restarting Apache:

Restarting web server apache2
apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName
[Wed Oct 14 17:39:17 2009] [warn] VirtualHost site1.local:0 overlaps with VirtualHost site2.local:0, the first has precedence, perhaps you need a NameVirtualHost directive

Why is it using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName? And why isn't my site2.local virtual host working?

Here's my hosts file:

# /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1   localhost site1.local site2.local
127.0.1.1   andrew-laptop


# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

In /etc/apache2/sites-available I have 3 files: default, site1.local, and site2.local

default:

NameVirtualHost *
<VirtualHost *>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

    DocumentRoot /var/www/
    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>
    <Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
        AllowOverride None
        Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel warn

    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
    ServerSignature On

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

site1.local:

<VirtualHost site1.local>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    ServerName admin
    DocumentRoot /home/andrew/Projects/site1/public
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/site1-access.log combined
    <Directory /home/andrew/Projects/site1/public>
        Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

site2.local:

<VirtualHost site2.local>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    ServerName admin
    DocumentRoot /home/andrew/Projects/site2/public
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/site2-access.log combined
    <Directory /home/andrew/Projects/site2/public>
        Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

If any of this seems wrong, please let me know. Please help me figure out what is wrong with my setup.

Answer 1

I believe you should be using site1.local / site2.local as your ServerName parameters in your virtual host files...at least that's what works for me.

The 127.0.0.1 ServerName default is likely being set in apache2.conf.

Answer 2

Here's one problem: in /etc/hosts, your localhosts line is wrong. You have this:

# /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1   localhost site1.local site2.local

You need to have this:

# /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1   localhost.localdomain localhost

The top line is important. You can assign site1.local and site2.local to nearly anything else, but the top line needs to include both localhost.localdomain and localhost.

I'm not sure what black magic is responsible, but things break weirdly in Ubuntu 9.04 and Debian 5.0.3 if that line gets changed to anything else. My recent Debian install had the same Apache errors (plus some other interesting breakages) until I rolled back my own changes to that line.

Since you still need to define site1.local and site2.local, you could do it like this:

127.0.1.1   andrew-laptop site1.local site2.local

But Apache might prefer different IP addresses for the sites, so you'd probably be better off doing it this way:

127.0.1.1   andrew-laptop
127.0.1.2   site1.local
127.0.1.3   site2.local

The 127.0.0.0/8 network is loopback, so you can pick any 127.x.x.x address you like for them.