Apache2 fails to find a newly created page

Question

I've just installed an apache server on Ubuntu, everything went well and I can access the starting page. However, I want to create another page which is located in /var/www/test. I want to be able to access it via address http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/test. I've created the directory, inserted the html file changed my config to this:

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/test>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Require all granted
</Directory>

But unfortunately, when I try to access this page I get an error: Not Found The requested URL was not found on this server.

Apache/2.4.29 (Ubuntu) Server

What am I doing wrong here?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 21 '20 at 15:57

The correspondence between the URL space and files on the disk is ruled by Apache's DocumentRoot directive. If you have in your main or <VirtualHost> configuration file a line like:

DocumentRoot /var/www/html

(you probably have this set in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf), then whenever you ask the server for http://example.com/path/to/file.html, you will get the content of file /var/www/html/path/to/file.html.

In your case you put a file (probably) called index.html in /var/www/test, but the server is searching for /var/www/html/test/index.html.

The Directory section you added only specifies permissions and other options for /var/www/test, it does not include it in the server's search path. Besides, directory options are inherited, so the /var/www/test directory inherits the options from /var/www (no need to specify the same options again).

Thanks, I changed DocumentRoot variable to /var/www/ and it works. — dywan666, Jan 21 '20 at 16:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 21 '20 at 16:20

First, you don't have to create a new <Directory> block to every directory in your website. Secondly, if you're trying to access the new file without specifying its name, make sure it is an index file. For instance: You've created a /var/www/test/index.html file, you have a DirectoryIndex index.html directive (more examples and information about its use can be found in here) and then you try to access through your browser through http://localhost/test or http://localhost/test/index.html (I'm assuming here that you've configured the DocumentRoot directive pointing to the /var/www directory.

Apache2 fails to find a newly created page

2 Answers2