Hosts file aliases makes https calls buggy

Question

I have a strange behaviour on my VPS that I cannot explain.

My server is a Lucid Lynx. Apache version is 2.2.14

I wanted to make some requests to localhost faster, so I added an extra line in my /etc/hosts file:

127.0.0.1 example.com # example.com is currently hosted on the same instance.

I restarted apache2, and after an hour of debugging I found that my server answers correctly to any https calls on 443 port when they are coming from a remote source, but tries to communicate with simple http, when I'm trying from it's own console.

Removing the alias from /etc/hosts and restarting apache2 fixes the problem.

Is there a common misconfiguration somewhere that can cause this behavior?

Answer 1

Making your hostname resolve to 127.0.0.1 used to be explicitly discouraged, for causing problem with "stupid programs". Connecting to a local IP should be fast regardless of using the loopback interface or not.

If removing the alias solves the problem, just do it.

Answer 2

a) you dont need to restart apache after changing your /etc/hosts b) are you changing /etc/hosts and apache running off of same host? c) show us your apache's configuration

apache doesn't really listening on 127.0.0.1, so what you did seems wrong (to me at least)

[root@wcmisdlin02 ~]# netstat -tanpv | grep httpd
tcp        0      0 :::80                       :::*                        LISTEN      12428/httpd         
tcp        0      0 :::443                      :::*                        LISTEN      12428/httpd         
[root@wcmisdlin02 ~]# 

I think main thing is that your https virtual host is binded to a specific IP and you're trying to reach to it through different IP so that's where it brakes...