Apache virtualhosts problem: only the first got picked up¶

Tags: python

While looking at openid logins for, for instance, our trac site, I was surprised to find only one apache openid plugin: mod_auth_openid. Which is included in more recent ubuntu releases (and probably the latest debian). The company server where I tried it on didn’t have a recent enough debian. So I tried my own server, which got me a 0.1 version which didn’t work.

Ok, an update from ubuntu hardy to intrepid was in order. An apt-get dist-upgrade worked relatively painless, except that the ADSL connection went down halfway. When I could connect again everything still worked flawlessly and I could finish the upgrade. Everything worked fine.

Except that all the apache sites were hosed. Only the first virtualhost got picked up. The rest just got ignored. After wasting three hours checking and tweaking and googling and checking again, I found the solution: with a NameVirtualHost *:80 config setting, all your <VirtualHost *> sections must be changed to <VirtualHost *:80>. All of them. Apparently previous apache versions didn’t complain, but the newer one installed by ubuntu intrepid did.

With that out of the way, I continued testing the mod_auth_openid plugin, which did work in the installed 0.2 version. But I need the 0.3 in order to only allow users with a specific openid. So I’ll have to see about another update tomorrow :-)