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Posted to users@httpd.apache.org by Thomas Leavitt <th...@thomasleavitt.org> on 2006/01/05 17:49:58 UTC

RE: [users@httpd] Apache 2.0.54 randomly fails to serve index.html for single domain on multi-host server

Boyle,

 You mis-read the message. Just to be clear:

NOTHING IS TOUCHED ON THE WEB SITE.

THE SERVER HAS DIRECTORYINDEX PARAMETERS in place.

INDEX.HTML IS SERVED FOR OTHER DOMAINS ON THE SAME SERVER.

One week, the server displays index.html, as it has done for the last
several years, as the default page. On a site that hasn't been touched
in months.

The next week, it doesn't - for one domain out of 100, in a shared
hosting environment. The others continue to work as normal.

The next week, the problem goes away for one domain, and appears on
another.

The only way to get a default page served, is to rename the index.html
file to index.htm, or symlink the two.

There are no .htaccess files involved.

This is why I'm baffled... I've been running web servers since 1994, and
apache for five or six years (not an Apache guru by any means, but I
understand how most of this works). The problem is not reproducible, as
far as I can tell - other than in the fact that the failure isn't
intermittent for the domains experiencing the problem, but continuous
(until it disappears).

Regards,
Thomas Leavitt


> -----Original Message-----
        > From: Thomas Leavitt [mailto:thomas@thomasleavitt.org]
        > Sent: Donnerstag, 5. Januar 2006 16:09
        > To: users@httpd.apache.org
        > Subject: [users@httpd] Apache 2.0.54 randomly fails to serve 
        > index.html
        > for single domainon multi-host server
        > 
        > 
        > I asked this before, with no response, so I'm rephrasing the
        question:
        > 
        > Environment:
        > 
        > Apache/2.0.54 (Mandriva Linux/PREFORK-13.1.20060mdk)
        > mod_auth_external/2.2.9 mod_ssl/2.0.54 OpenSSL/0.9.7g
        PHP/5.1.0RC1
        > 
        > Mandriva 2006, Pentium III dual processor system, SMP kernal,
        768 mb
        > memory, ext3 filesystem... can supply any other information
        desired.
        > 
        > Using virtual hosting, with a fairly "stock" set up, via
        individual
        > files in vhosts.d (about 100 or so different sites)
        > 
        > Here's the problem:
        > 
        > Periodically, I get calls from my clients, and/or web site
        visitors,
        > telling me that "their site is gone"... inevitably, when I 
        > look, what I
        > see is a directory listing.
        
        If you have commented out all "DirectoryIndex" directives then
        apache falls back to the default "index.html". If the client
        then edits their site and - somehow - renames index.html to
        index.htm then apache will not find the index file and so will
        list the directory.
        
        Double-triple check that users are not using some helpful editor
        that renames the index file....
        
        As a fix for the future (since you'll never get them to stop
        it), actually start *using* the DirectoryIndex directive. It can
        take a list of names, eg:
        
        DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm
        
        Rgds,
        Owen Boyle
        Disclaimer: Any disclaimer attached to this message may be
        ignored. 
        
        > 
        > Now, this isn't because index.html has been munged... because
        it is
        > there. It just isn't being served by the web server as the 
        > default home
        > page.
        > 
        > This problem is, as far as I can tell, always confined to a
        single
        > domain, and is consistent (as long as it lasts), i.e., 100
        attempts to
        > load the site produce 100 directory listings.
        > 
        > What isn't consistent, is that it goes away after a few days
        (haven't
        > retested any one domain long enough to see how long)... and 
        > usually pops
        > up on another domain (had the problem reported a half dozen
        times over
        > the past few months).
        > 
        > Nothing I've done seems to make it go away - I removed a bunch
        of
        > modules that I wasn't really using, in case there was some odd
        "side
        > effect". I played around with the order of the DirectoryIndex 
        > listing. I
        > commented out the DirectoryIndex item in the php apache config
        file...
        > tried every trick I could think of; nothing works. Which is
        why I'm
        > asking (again) here for advice.
        > 
        > What does "fix" the problem, is symlinking index.htm to
        index.html ...
        > no idea why the problem doesn't display itself with 
        > index.htm, but that
        > seems to "cure" it. Rather reluctant to symlink every damned 
        > instance of
        > index.html to an equivalent index.htm, but it looks like I 
        > might need to
        > do that if I can't solve the problem otherwise.
        > 
        > Tips? Pointers? Help?!?
        > 
        > Regards,
        > Thomas Leavitt
        > Systems Admin
        > Godmoma's Forge, LLC
        > 831-295-3917
        > http://www.godmomasforge.com/
        > 
        > 
        > 
        >
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Re: [users@httpd] Apache 2.0.54 randomly fails to serve index.html for single domain on multi-host server

Posted by Joshua Slive <jo...@slive.ca>.
On 1/5/06, Thomas Leavitt <th...@thomasleavitt.org> wrote:
> Boyle,
>
>  You mis-read the message. Just to be clear:
>
> NOTHING IS TOUCHED ON THE WEB SITE.
>
> THE SERVER HAS DIRECTORYINDEX PARAMETERS in place.
>
> INDEX.HTML IS SERVED FOR OTHER DOMAINS ON THE SAME SERVER.
>
> One week, the server displays index.html, as it has done for the last
> several years, as the default page. On a site that hasn't been touched
> in months.
>
> The next week, it doesn't - for one domain out of 100, in a shared
> hosting environment. The others continue to work as normal.
>
> The next week, the problem goes away for one domain, and appears on
> another.
>
> The only way to get a default page served, is to rename the index.html
> file to index.htm, or symlink the two.
>
> There are no .htaccess files involved.
>
> This is why I'm baffled... I've been running web servers since 1994, and
> apache for five or six years (not an Apache guru by any means, but I
> understand how most of this works). The problem is not reproducible, as
> far as I can tell - other than in the fact that the failure isn't
> intermittent for the domains experiencing the problem, but continuous
> (until it disappears).

I've seen mandrake distribute some pretty hacked-up versions of
apache, so one option is to grab a clean version from httpd.apache.org
and see if the problem still appears.

Does the problem persist through apache restarts?  If so, you can
restart the server in single-process mode (-X command line option)
under a debugger and find out exactly what it is doing.

Joshua.