Apache problems
 

Hi,

I'm pretty new to the UNIX thing, I just got a new dedicated server for my websites and it came almost completely blank, which is something I haven't had to deal with! A friend recommended webmin with virtualmin to host my domains, but I can't seem to get apache to work. I set it up through webmin and it seems to be running, but whenever I attempt to go my IP in my browser it just gives me a blank page, the default directory is /var/www/html, but any index.html I put in there doesn't show up. Also, the default noindex apache file doesn't show up either. Any ideas here? I'm at a loss!

Thanks,
Joe

Hi Joe826!!!

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org. Are you starting apache correctly? A way to do it, as root, is by typing:

apachetl start

and to stop, well, it's the same command as the above, but with stop instead of start :p. If no error messages are returned when you start apache, when trying to ping your server, it should work (eg. http://292.295.685.344) at the browser. If it does not, try typing localhost instead.

Good luck!

Welcome to LQ :)

You'll need to give us a bit more info, and likely need to dig in the conf file a bit to get some of it for us...

What version of Apache are you running, how did you install it, what distro? When you check top (see next section on how to view top) do you see Apache running as a process? How about ps?

To see what top and ps are reporting:
Open up a terminal, and type:
top
This will list processes, you should see Apache in there.
PS:
Open up a terminal, and type:
ps -aux
And it should report back A LOT of info. In that list should be Apache. It might be called httpd, either way, you should see something referring to an http server running.

Inside your conf file(s) locate your 'DocumentRoot', 'ServerRoot' and any other information you feel pertinent, and post it up. Also, are you trying to access it on the local machine, or are you across a network? Is port 80 forwarded to that machine? Are there any IPTables (firewall built into a lot of distros) blocking that port on that machine?

Cool

Hey! I figured out the problem, I had enabled virtual hosting with the NamedVirtualHost line but I didn't know I had to make an entry for my "default" host as well. I guess that's why it wasn't working.. and if that's not the reason, i'm not sure, but it works anyways :).

One more question though. I want to virtually host these names, but since this is just a box with my host and they give me nameservers to point my names to, I don't have to mess with BIND/DNS at all do I? Is there anything else I'll need to do?

Thanks,
Joe

If you aren't running your own nameservers, then no, you don't have to mess with any (BIND is a DNS server, which contains named, a name server tool..). You will have to point your IP to your names of your domains, but other than that, no you shouldn't have to mess with any named services/DNS services.

Cool

Thanks MasterC, how do I go about pointing my IP to my names?

Thanks for helping me,
Joe

edit: or did you mean, in the <VirtualHost> tag, just adding the IP? I just did <VirtualHost *> so that should work right?

It depends on how your zones are managed. If you aren't running your own DNS servers, then whoever is running them for you will do that, or you will need to edit them via their web interface (or whatever they use to allow you to edit your zones).

Cool