WORKS FINE: www.exampledomain.co.uk{/with-any-url}
GIVES 404 ERROR: exampledomain.co.uk{/with-any-url}
I am having an issue with a site running on linux/apache2 whereby 'www.' urls are working fine, however with the 'www.' removed a 404 is returned for every url. The domain shows no errors in a dnsstuff.com check, with the www and regular domain pointing to the same IP address.
When I use cmd to ping the domain and the www. domain, both resolve to the same IP and respond.
I implemented this code in a .htaccess file in the web root, which serves to prepend the 'www.' onto non-www requests:
Options +FollowSymlinks
Options All -Indexes
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS}s ^on(s)|
RewriteRule ^http%1://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
However, this isn't working either. The exact rewrite rules are tested and function on another site to enforce the 'www.' to be prefixed.
This is the vhosts conf file in use:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin exampleuser@exampledomain.co.uk
ServerName www.exampledomain.co.uk
ServerAlias exampledomain.co.uk
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
DocumentRoot /home/exampleuser/public/example.co.uk/public_html
<Directory /home/exampleuser/public/example.co.uk/public_html>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
LogLevel warn
ErrorLog /home/exampleuser/public/example.co.uk/log/error.log
CustomLog /home/exampleuser/public/example.co.uk/log/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName exampledomain.co.uk
Redirect permanent / http://www.exampledomain.co.uk/
</VirtualHost>
The server name and alias have been defined in reverse order to what is shown here (with apache restarts in-between changes) and the second vhosts entry for the 'Redirect permanent' has been added later, all to no effect.
What could be causing this behaviour? Anything else I should check? Have searched through so much material to find a solution but can't see anything wrong or missing. Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Today I noticed that from a previous testing server instance there was another vhosts conf file in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ which was left behind and named example.co.uk.conf - the directory name used for the site that the main exampledomain.co.uk.conf file was pointing towards is /home/exampleuser/public/example.co.uk/public_html so I checked inside and the file contained an empty vhosts declaration:
<VirtualHost *:80>
</VirtualHost>
When this <VirtualHost> section was commented out with hashes or removed, or the conf file was renamed to something other than example.co.uk.conf, the non-www. requests were then being routed into the correct web root just as with the www. requests and the problem was resolved.
However, I am not clear about why this example.co.uk.conf is chosen for requests to exampledomain.co.uk and not for those to www.exampledomain.co.uk, so if anyone can extend this answer please edit or comment. Thanks!