Apache2 sending virtual host with matching servername to a different virtual host

Question

I have 2 separate domains that I want to host 2 different servers on. I have both conf files set up, but the problem is; going to my second domain in my browser sends me to the first virtual host and all its files. I'm not sure what can cause this, because I'm new to most apache things, so I will put both conf files here.

Site 1:

NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@site1.example
    ServerName site1.example
    ServerAlias www.site1.example
    DocumentRoot /var/www/site1.example/html
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Site 2:

LoadModule vhost_alias_module modules/mod_vhost_alias.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
NameVirtualHost *:443
Listen 443
<VirtualHost *:443>
        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteCond %{HTTPS}  !=on
        RewriteRule ^/?(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/%1 [R,L]
        ServerName site2.example
        ServerAlias *.site2.example
        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/site2/SSL_error.log
        TransferLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/site2/SSL_access.log
        VirtualDocumentRoot "/var/www/site2/%1"

        SSLEngine on
        SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
        SSLCipherSuite ALL:!DH:!EXPORT:!RC4:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:!LOW:!aNULL:!eNULL

        SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/site2.example/fullchain.pem
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/site2.example/privkey.pem
        <Files ~ "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php3?)$">
                   SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
        </Files>

        SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0~
        <Directory /var/www/site2.example>
                Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
                UseCanonicalName Off
                AllowOverride All
                Allow from all
                RewriteEngine On
                RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(.*)\.site2\.example$ [NC]
                RewriteCond /var/www/site2.example/%1 !-d
                RewriteRule ^(.*) https://404.site2.example/
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/site2.example/%1>
                Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
                UseCanonicalName Off
                AllowOverride All
                Allow from all
        </Directory>

        <Location />
                UseCanonicalName Off
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Location>
</VirtualHost>

From this, what I mean is that Site 2 is sending me to Site 1, not as a redirect, but actually loads all of its files. Perhaps I did something wrong? When I set Site 2's port to 80, it tells me "Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand. Reason: You're speaking plain HTTP to an SSL-enabled server port. Instead use the HTTPS scheme to access this URL, please" even when using https://

Answer 1

I would recommend adding additional virtual hosts:

• A default HTTP virtual host that shows an error for unrecognized host names
• A default HTTP virtual host that shows an error for unrecognized host names
• A virtual HTTP host for your .dev site that redirects to HTTPS.

Even with HSTS enabled for your .dev domain, you should still redirect any HTTP requests to HTTPS. There could be browsers, bots, or crawlers that don't support HSTS and still need the redirect. Google recommends redirecting even when HSTS is enabled.

Apache treats the first virtual host as the default. If a virtual host is listed first, it may get non-matching host name requests if those requests don't match any other virtual hosts. It sounds like your requests are coming in on port 80, Apache doesn't find a matching host name on port 80 and sends the request to the first virtual host for port 80. Installing a default virtual host that shows an error prevents duplicate content and may help you debug your configuration.

Place these virtual hosts before other virtual hosts in your config file. If each site is in its own file, name the file starting with zeros so that it comes first alphabetically. eg /etc/apache2/sites-available/0000-default.conf then enable the site with sudo a2ensite 0000-default. You may have to create the /var/www/default directory to get these to work. You may also need to create a self-signed certificate if there isn't one already available on your system for the default HTTPS.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName localhost.localdomain
    ErrorDocument 404 "Host name not recognized"
    DocumentRoot /var/www/default
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName localhost.localdomain
    ErrorDocument 404 "Host name not recognized"
    DocumentRoot /var/www/default

    SSLEngine on
    SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
    SSLCipherSuite ALL:!DH:!EXPORT:!RC4:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:!LOW:!aNULL:!eNULL
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key
</VirtualHost>

Then create a virtual host for site2 on port 80 that does nothing but redirect to HTTPS:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@site2.site
    ServerName site2.site
    ServerAlias www.site2.site
    Redirect permanent / https://site2.site/
</VirtualHost>

When you got the error "Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand. Reason: You're speaking plain HTTP to an SSL-enabled server port. Instead use the HTTPS scheme to access this URL, please." that probably means that you were trying to visit an HTTP version site on port 443 with a URL like http://site2.site:443/ when you should have been trying https://site2.site/ You may have caused this by typing site2.site:443 with no protocol into your RUL bar and your browser assumed HTTP. The solution is to never specify the :443 in the URL and always just add an s as in https:// instead.