Virtual server setup breaks Rewrite Rules

[Thomas Schweikle]

Default setup for Apache2 is with:
<Virtualhost *:80>
   ...
</Virtualhost>

there are web applications within "/etc/apache2/conf.d" any rewrite-rules given there are ignored, because they are outside the scope for the virtual server running on port 80.

Two solutions:
1. Move all Location definitions for the default virtual server to some directory to be included within
<Virtualhost *:80>
   include Location definitions
</Virtualhost>

or

2. remove <Virtualhost *:80> </Virtualhost> entirely for the default server.

It is more than only annoying having various rewrite rules never touched, just because they not located at the right place!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: apache2 2.2.14-5ubuntu8.4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-33.71-server 2.6.32.41+drm33.18
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-33-server x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Aug 4 15:38:42 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 10.04.1 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100816.2)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: apache2

[Thomas Schweikle (tps)]

Or

3. Change "<Virtualhost *:80>" to "<Virtualhost _default_:80>".

[Dave Walker (davewalker)]

Thanks for the bug report.

Solution 3 sounds most favourable. Marking confirmed with and low, requires more investigation to confirm it is regression free.

Thanks.

[Marc Cluet (lynxman)]

Merge proposed with fix

https://code.launchpad.net/~lynxman/ubuntu/oneiric/apache2/fixeddefaultsite/+merge/72172

[James Page (james-page)]

Switching "<Virtualhost *:80>" to "<Virtualhost _default_:80>" does not make the default site configuration pickup global rewrite rule definitions - see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_rewrite.html#vhosts.

Going with option 2 (removing virtual host definition altogether) really breaks the concept of sites-available and sites-enabled so I don't think we should take that route.

Option 1 might be feasible - however I don't think that including all of the conf.d directory within the VirtualHost definition is correct so it would need a separate 'global rewrites' directory.

We would also need to bear in mind that mod_rewrite is not enabled by default so maybe rewrite configuration should be treated as a customization rather than part of the base installation. Whatever we do we should do it in-conjunction with Debian as changing default behaviour/configuration could break alot of stuff.

Marking as 'Opinion' as merits further discussion.