[TriLUG] Apache and Virtual Hosts help

[Brian Henning]

*From memory, so check it*

I believe the default VirtualHost behavior is to serve any 
NamedVirtualHost that isn't actually found from the first VirtualHost 
section declared.  So for example, if you had...
<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName bob.yourdomain.com
   ...
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName jim.yourdomain.com
   ...
</VirtualHost>

...and you asked for / from thelma.yourdomain.com (which, for this 
argument, has valid DNS entries pointing at the same server, but no 
VirtualHost mentioning it), you'd be served documents as if you'd asked 
for / from bob.yourdomain.com.

To get the behavior you described (at the expense of losing any 
/desired/ default host function), you could define all your valid 
virtual hosts, then create another virtual host which would come first 
in httpd.conf such as:
<VirtualHost *:80>
   # No ServerName needed
   DocumentRoot /some/empty/place/to/produce/404s
   ErrorDocument 404 /path/to/custom/404/if/desired.html
</VirtualHost>

...or something.  Again, this is all from memory without looking at any 
docs or examples at the moment, and my memory has been known to do 
strange things in the past.  Someone may have a much better suggestion 
than this, as well.

~B


Tarus Balog wrote:
> Gang:
> 
> We're working on a new HTTP poller for OpenNMS that does things like  
> handle virtual domains, user agents, etc. Just wanted to know if  anyone 
> could shed light on the following behavior.
> 
> If I
> 
> telnet opennms.org 80
> 
> and send the following strings:
> 
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> Host: zztop.canes.com
> Connection: Close
> 
> I get a 302 Found response. The Host is just made up, so I would  expect 
> a 400 or 500 level error.
> 
> If I do the same for another server:
> 
> telnet internal.opennms.com 80
> 
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> Host: zztop.canes.com
> Connection: Close
> 
> I get a 200 response with the default page.
> 
> Since I get different responses, I assume that I have configured  apache 
> differently on each server. My questions:
> 
> 1) What *should* be the response? Is there an RFC or standard that  
> dictates it?
> 
> 2) How would I configure it for a 404, etc.
> 
> -T
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> 
> Tarus Balog
> The OpenNMS Group, Inc.
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