[apache] Site does not exist error for a2ensite

I have cmsplus.dev under /etc/apache2/sites-available with the following code,

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    ServerName www.cmsplus.dev
    ServerAlias cmsplus.dev

    DocumentRoot /var/www/cmsplus.dev/public

    LogLevel warn
    ErrorLog /var/www/cmsplus.dev/log/error.log
    CustomLog /var/www/cmsplus.dev/log/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Now when I use sudo /usr/sbin/a2ensite cmsplus.dev, I am getting the error,

ERROR: Site cmsplus.dev does not exist!

My webserver Apache/2.4.6 (Ubuntu)

How to solve this issue?

I realise that's not the case here but it might help someone.

Double-check you didn't create the conf file in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled by mistake. You get the same error.

Try like this..

NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    ServerName www.cmsplus.dev
    ServerAlias cmsplus.dev

    DocumentRoot /var/www/cmsplus.dev/public

    LogLevel warn
    ErrorLog /var/www/cmsplus.dev/log/error.log
    CustomLog /var/www/cmsplus.dev/log/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

and add entry in /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 www.cmsplus.dev

restart apache..

You probably updated your Ubuntu installation and one of the updates included the upgrade of Apache to version 2.4.x

In Apache 2.4.x the vhost configuration files, located in the /etc/apache2/sites-available directory, must have the .conf extension.

Using terminal (mv command), rename all your existing configuration files and add the .conf extension to all of them.

mv /etc/apache2/sites-available/cmsplus.dev /etc/apache2/sites-available/cmsplus.dev.conf

If you get a "Permission denied" error, then add "sudo " in front of your terminal commands.

You do not need to make any other changes to the configuration files.

Enable the vhost(s):

a2ensite cmsplus.dev.conf

And then reload Apache:

service apache2 reload

Your sites should be up and running now.

UPDATE: As mentioned here, a Linux distribution that you installed changed the configuration to Include *.conf only. Therefore it has nothing to do with Apache 2.2 or 2.4

I have just upgraded the Ubuntu Server version from 12.04 LTS to 14.04 LTS.

Indeed, as said above, the .conf extension to Apache 2.4.x is needed to the websites vhost files that resides on sites-available directory.

Before read this question I did not have a clue what was going on with the server.

Pretty nice solution.

Just summarizing I did the following steps on Terminal:

1) Access sites-enabled folder

$ cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled

2) Because the command a2dissite will not work with deprecated files (without .conf) remove the old website files that was published

$ sudo rm <my-old-website-without-.conf>

3) Rename the website vhost files changing its extension adding .conf to the end

$ sudo mv /etc/apache2/sites-available/mywebsite /etc/apache2/sites-available/mywebsite.conf

4) Republish the new and correct vhost file

$ sudo a2ensite mywebsite.conf

5) Check the website on browser and have fun! :)

There's another good way, just edit the file apache2.conf theres a line at the end

IncludeOptional sites-enabled/*.conf

just remove the .conf at the end, like this

IncludeOptional sites-enabled/*

and restart the server.

(I tried this only in the Ubuntu 13.10, when I updated it.)

Worked after I added .conf to the configuration file

I just had the same problem. I'd say it has nothing to do with the apache.conf.

a2ensite must have changed - line 532 is the line that enforces the .conf suffix:

else {
    $dir    = 'sites';
    $sffx   = '.conf';
    $reload = 'reload';
}

If you change it to:

else {
    $dir    = 'sites';
    #$sffx   = '.conf';
    $sffx   = '';
    $reload = 'reload';
}

...it will work without any suffix.

Of course you wouldn't want to change the a2ensite script, but changing the conf file's suffix is the correct way.

It's probably just a way of enforcing the ".conf"-suffix.

So .. quickest way is rename site config names ending in ".conf"

mv /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite.conf

a2ensite mysite.conf

other notes on previous comments:

• IncludeOptional wasn't introduced until apache 2.36 - making change above followed by restart on 2.2 will leave your server down!

• also, version 2.2 a2ensite can't be hacked as described

as well, since your sites-available file is actually a configuration file, it should be named that way anyway..

In general do not restart services (webservers are one type of service):

• folks can't find them if they are not running! Think linux not MS Windows..

Servers can run for many years - live update, reload config, etc.

The cloud doesn't mean you have to restart to load a configuration file.

• When changing configuration of a service use "reload" not "restart".

• restart stops the service then starts service - if there is a any problem in your change to the config, the service will not restart.

• reload will give an error but the service never shuts down giving you a chance to fix the config error which could only be bad syntax.

debian or ubunto [service-name for this thread is apache2]

service {service-name} {start} {stop} {reload} ..

other os's left as an excersize for the reader.

In my case with Ubuntu 14.04.3 and Apache 2.4.7, the problem was that I copied site1.conf to make site2.conf available, and by copying, something happend and I could not a2ensite site2.conf with the error described in thread.

The solution for me, was to rename site2.conf to site2 and then again rename site2 to site2.conf. After that I was able to a2ensite site2.conf.