After configuring Apache server settings on the name server, you may encounter a message “[warn] NameVirtualHost 192.168.1.3:80 has no VirtualHosts”

The issue may be due to more than one entry of NameVirtualHost lines in the configuration settings. You can find this out by

$ grep NameVirtual * -R
site1:NameVirtualHost *:80
site2:NameVirtualHost *:80

Linux Solution: Remove one of the occurance of the NameVirtualHost and the warning message that you receive will vanish.

If you think, that you will need the necessary feature to upload large files then there are two ways by which you can enable this feature.

i) Edit the physical file and have the line
ini_set(“memory_limit”,”20M”);

ii) Edit php.ini and add the following line. You need to restart the apache/IIS server once php.ini file is modified.
memory_limit=32M

user@server:~# less /var/log/apache2/error.log

Configure::write(‘debug’, 2);

Cause: CakePHP is not PHP 5.3 ready unlike the latest version of Zend framework.

Remedy: Try downloading older version of PHP – e.g. PHP 5.2.9

Check the error log file (in ubuntu it is in /var/log/apache2/error.log) for the above stated error message. Check the .htaccess file or the apache configuration files where you have restricted file permission using File Directive.

Consider the case of two domain names mysite1 and site2 to be served on IP Address 192.168.1.100 (port 80)

Before proceeding let us look at how resolv.conf and hosts file are set up …

$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
search kurinchilion.com
nameserver 192.168.1.100

$ cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.1.100 myserver.kurinchilion.com myserver

# 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

We can organize the name server information, directory to serve under each circumstance, folder permission in different ways

i) organize all name server information under /etc/apache2/conf.d/vhosts.conf

NameVirtualHost 192.168.1.100
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.100:80>
ServerName mysite1
DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite1
<Directory /var/www/mysite1>
Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
< </VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 192.168.1.100:80>
ServerName mysite2
DocumentRoot /home/mysite2
</VirtualHost>

After creating the above file, issue the following commands

$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

ii) have a modular approach to site organization and list separate files based on domain name under /etc/apache2/sites-enabled

File: mysite1
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.100:80>
ServerName mysite1
DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite1

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All

</VirtualHost>

File: mysite2
<VirtualHost 192.168.1.100:80>
ServerName mysite2
DocumentRoot /home/mysite2
</VirtualHost>

After creating the above files, issue the following commands

$ a2ensite mysite1

$ a2ensite mysite2

(If you want to disable the site configuration, then issue a2dissite sitename)

$ sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite1 /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mysite1

$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

iii) Organize the same information stated in step (i) but under /etc/apache2/sites-available/default (This already has a symbolic link to /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default)

Virtual Hosting is a technique by which web servers can serve more than one domain name on the same server. It can also be a variation of serving different sites on the same IP but on different ports.

If Ubuntu, you may need to edit
i) /etc/hosts

ii) /etc/apache2/conf.d/vhosts.conf (or /etc/apache2/sites-available/default) depending on how you have configured the virtual host environment

If CentOS, you may need to edit

i) /etc/hosts

ii) /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

For listening to different ports Listen directive should be added to /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file

References:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/vhosts/examples.html (Apache’s virtual host configuration documentation)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_host

http://apptools.com/phptools/virtualhost.php (For configuring Apache server on Windows)

Issuing a apache restart command will forcefully close all the connections made to the web server which will end any user related activity on the server.

If you would want to avoid such scenarios then issue the following command

$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 graceful (in ubuntu)

Considerations:

Slight hit to performance takes place when .htaccess directive is set as Apache checks each directory for its existence before any file access in that directory

Next consideration will be with regards how the site owners manage the setting changes and its security which can be misused.

Some of the uses of .htaccess:

i) Applications require .htaccess for it to beautify the URL
ii) Folder or file permission settings can be set using .htaccess
iii) Error documents can be handled through .htaccess
iv) Can be used to allow/disallow bots

Apache advise the usage of httpd.conf file in Apache Server to set the necessary server directive settings and to avoid using .htaccess if it is not necessary.

If CSS styling is missing in the display page, then check apache server’s httpd.conf file to see if mod_rewrite module is enabled. Remove the comment symbol to enable mod_rewrite in your localhost and restart Apache server for the change to take effect

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Now reload the page to check if the page loads as expected i.e. css styles applied to the page

If you see a good looking css styled page, then mod_rewrite is enabled in your system and you can go ahead in configuring your database settings and other routing parameters as needed.