Apache Virtual Host Gets www.domain.com but not domain.com

Question

I have this in my sites-available apache2 virtual host file:

 <VirtualHost *:80>

   ServerName  domain.com
   ServerAlias www.domain.com

...
</VirtualHost>

Why does apache send requests from www.domain.com to the correct path, but domain.com gets sent to the default virtual host?

Update: The reason domain.com gets sent to the default virtual host is because the hostname of the machine automatically gets sent to default.

Answer 1

(Obvious question -- is the DNS for www and non-www the same?)

For debugging purposes the -S flag is useful to check the config as the apache service itself sees it.

Debian based world:

apache2 -S

Redhat based world:

httpd -S

and another example:

VirtualHost configuration:
wildcard NameVirtualHosts and _default_ servers:
*:80                   is a NameVirtualHost
         default server localhost (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:2)
         port 80 namevhost mydomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/domain1:16)
         port 80 namevhost myotherdomain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/domain2:1
...etc

Answer 2

I'd check to see if you have the proper DNS records for domain.com and www.domain.com - where there is 1 main A record, and then a CNAME for the other.

You can do lookups with the tools at network-tools.com

Answer 3

Make sure you have DNS entries set for www to point to domain.com.

Answer 4

Is there a servername directive outside of the < virtualhost > section?