Topic: Problem with localhost when virtual hosts are working fine

[webprofessor]

Hi I configured two virtual hosts in my XAMPP for windows environment. This is what I did:

1) I edited hosts file and added the following.

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 www.maria.com
127.0.0.1 www.mary.com
::1 localhost


2) I edited httpd-vhosts.conf file and added the following:

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.maria.com
DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/maria"
DirectoryIndex index.php index.php4 index.php3 index.cgi index.pl index.html index.htm index.shtml index.phtml
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.mary.com
DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/mary"
DirectoryIndex index.php index.php4 index.php3 index.cgi index.pl index.html index.htm index.shtml index.phtml
</VirtualHost>

3) The problem I have is the following:

when I type http://www.mary.com/index.html or http://www.mariah.com/index.html, I see the contents of index.html in browser.

a) If I type http://localhost, I get the error message as follows:

Object not found, Error 404.

I also noticed that the URL changes to http://localhost/xampp.

Before I added virtual hosts, when I type http://localhost, I used to see my index.html displayed in browser.

Did I do something wrong when I configured virtual hosts?

b) Virtual hosts works ok, but I do not understand why I have to type full URL http://www.mary.com/index.html instead of http://www.mary.com.

Did I do something wrong with the set up?

I appreciate your help. I am also adding the part of httpd.conf file which you may be interested to see:

------------ Part of httpd.conf ---------------------
ServerAdmin admin@localhost

ServerName localhost:80

DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs"

<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</Directory>

<Directory "C:/xampp/htdocs">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

<IfModule dir_module>
DirectoryIndex index.php index.php4 index.php3 index.cgi index.pl index.html index.htm index.shtml index.phtml
</IfModule>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I sincerely appreciate your help.

Thank You.

Srini

[glsmith]

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 www.maria.com
127.0.0.1 www.mary.com
::1 localhost <<-- get rid of this and try again

[webprofessor]

Thanks for the help. Your suggestion helped me to get closer to my goal.

Still, the problem is not solved.

After removing ::1 localhost from the hosts file, I restarted XAMPP and see what happens.

This time localhost worked, but it is picking up index.html from the first virtual host. I changed the order of virtual hosts to confirm the behavior.

It seems I do have to do one or more changes either in the httpd.conf or httpd-vhosts.conf.

[glsmith]

yes .. that is typical .. a typical place where most stumble that is. I saw that it would happen just figured I'd wait and see if the removing the IPv6 call in the host file got you to this point.

between NameVirtualhosts and the first vhost .. what is it ... www.maria.com add this

[webprofessor]

Great! It works!

I spent almost 24 hours thinking about why localhost and virtual hosts are not working together. Many thanks for your help.

<VirtualHost _default_:80>
DocumentRoot C:/xampp/htdocs
</VirtualHost>

Where did you find the above information? I am curious to know. If it is from a book, I consider buying the book.

What is the meaning of this code? Why is it required?

<VirtualHost _default_:80>
DocumentRoot C:/xampp/htdocs
</VirtualHost>

[glsmith]

Oh man .. that requires me to remember

Honest truth, I've been playing with this beast for 10 years, since sometime mid-June to mid-July of 1998, I have no clue where I first saw this.

I do know, it is in docs ..

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/name-based.html

[webprofessor]

Many Thanks for your detailed explanation. I learned a lot today!

[sos]

webprofessor, here is an interesting book if you want to have one at handy. http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596518882/index.html