Re: Weird problem with httpd.conf save

I don't get it yet.

> I was going to 
> re-order the httpd.conf file for him so that the default virtual host
> was the initial one he set up (rather than the last one added).

In the httpd.conf file you moved the last <VirtualHost> block to the top of
the <VirtualHost> list, so it would be the default site.

And saved the file, I assume, and restarted apache, I assume.

> So, in the terminal, I did a cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.save25april2003

Then you duplicated the file with a different name in the same dir. What's
the significance of duping the file?

> every virtual host called up was being served out of
> the same directory.

You mean every host who's IP resolved to the apache <VH  IP> (e.g.,
DNS=www.X.com A 10.0.0.1 AND <VirtualHost 10.0.0.1>), requested with http,
resulted to the newly configured default site, the one you moved to the top
of the <VH> list?

As if all the other hosts that point at that machine's http server were not
finding their corresponding ServerName perimeter in the <VirtualHost> block?
Like:

<VirtualHost    10.0.0.1:80>
ServerName      other.X.com #####like it didn't find this?
DocumentRoot    /Library/WebServer/WebSites/other
NameVirtualHost 10.0.0.1
....
</VirtualHost>

> Now, I went in & did apachectl configtest

You should have tried this: # tail -f /var/log/httpd/error_log and tail -f
/var/log/httpd/access_log (or wherever the logs are) and then made some http
requests to the server while watching the output from the tail -f command.

> Now, the owner of the machine then tried switching a whole
> bunch of the httpd.conf files we had saves & one of them brought it
> back to normal.

You should have compared the httpd.conf file that revived it to the one you
broke. diff file1 file2 OR BBEdit.

> Has anyone else seen the same symptoms & if so, what was it &
> how did you fix it.

I've done this many times. It was always some miss-configuration in the
httpd.conf file. The apachectl configtest doesn't always complain about
miss-configurations only bad syntax. You can put the wrong IP in the <VH>
and configtest won't complain but it won't work.

I'd look at:
<VirtualHost    ????:80>
ServerName      other.X.com ##check the DNS?
NameVirtualHost ????

but it could be a bunch of other things. I just fuss with till it works
watching the error_log.

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