Question

Cannot change root of web site with Apache2 Virtual Hosts directive

Posted on December 23, 2019
Ubuntu 18.04 Apache Drupal PHP
Asked by journeyintosound

I need to have this site’s root be /var/www/example_site/docroot/ Running SSL with a Let’s Encrypt certificate, and heavy .htaccess file in /var/www/example_site/docroot

Whenever I run phpinfo() it tells me that the DOCUMENT_ROOT still remains /var/www/example_site

Here is the apache2 Virtual Hosts conf directive, which I took care of enabling with a2ensite and have restarted apache2 numerous times. The default 000 conf file was disabled.

<VirtualHost *:443 *:80>
    <Directory /var/www/example_site/docroot>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
ServerAdmin webmaster@example_site.org
ServerName example_site.org
ServerAlias www.example_site.org
DocumentRoot /var/www/example_site/docroot
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =example_site.org [OR]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =www.example_site.org
RewriteRule ^ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [END,NE,R=permanent]
</VirtualHost>

Also, does a ‘Virtual Host’ directive need to have both port 443 and 80 specified, or would *:80 be enough?

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alexdo

Site Moderator

• December 25, 2019

Accepted Answer

Hello, @journeyintosound

Have you restarted Apache once you’ve made the changes to the Virtual Hosts? Also before doing this you can check for any syntax errors in the configuration file using the following command:

httpd -t

If you have SSL Certificate installed and you want to have your site available in the browser via https you will need a virtual host for port 443 as well. I’m not sure how was the certificate installed, but if you use certbot to install LE for example it will automatically add the virtual host for port 443 and will ask if you to set the needed http --> https redirections on your behalf as well.

Regards, Alex