Hosting Multiple SSL Sites on Separate IP Addresses

Question

Hosting Multiple SSL Sites on Separate IP Addresses
I currently have a web server (XServe) hosting a number of different sites from its main IP address on port 80 using Apache 1.3. This has been working great, the ServerAdmin GUI has been pretty good about creating the appropriate Apache configs, and everybody is happy.
I have one particular site that I want to use SSL with so I decided to purchase a cert (from GoDaddy). Since I have one other cert on the server assigned to the main server IP, I understand that the appropriate way to setup additional SSL certificates is to bind another IP address to the XServe and use that IP. I was unable to use ServerAdmin to install my new certificate (not surprisingly) probably since it is a chain certificate, however I have been able to do it by hand and it seems to be working as intended…mostly.
This is where my problem begins. The site that I wanted to add SSL to is currently hosted on the main IP address (x.x.x.173:80) and the SSL certificate is working on the newly bound IP address (x.x.x.178:443). Fundamentally it would seem appropriate to change the IP address of the non-SSL site to match the new IP, except on port 80 – So I can achieve a seamless blend between standard and SSL (when necessary). The problem is that I can’t get Apache to work this way. Maybe I am missing a step, or overlooking something.
Excerpt from current, working (non-SSL) config: (Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
<VirtualHost x.x.x.173:80>
ServerName www.site.com
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents/www.site.com"
</VirtualHost>
Excerpt from current, working (SSL) config:
<VirtualHost x.x.x.178:443>
ServerName www.site.com
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents/www.site.com"
</VirtualHost>
changing the first entry’s ip address to match the second one causes the site to be unresponsive (using the IP address to point the browser to the site) but the SSL version keeps working. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jake
PowerBook, XServe G5   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

Answer 1

Thanks for your reply Roger, here are the results that you’ve requested:
I deleted a few lines that were redundant and unrelated (no errors)
Results of apachectl configtest:
Processing config directory: /etc/httpd/sites/*.conf
Processing config file: /etc/httpd/sites/0012x.x.x.173_80www.site.com.conf
Processing config file: /etc/httpd/sites/0016x.x.x.178_443www.site.com.conf
Processing config file: /etc/httpd/sites/virtualhostglobal.conf
[Thu Apr 6 09:06:27 2006] [warn] module mod_php4.c is already added, skipping
Syntax OK
Results from netstat -a -n | egrep 178:
tcp4 0 0 x.x.x.178.53 . LISTEN
udp4 0 0 x.x.x.178.123 .
udp4 0 0 x.x.x.178.53 .
Results from tail -f /var/log/httpd/error_log
/etc/httpd/sites/0012x.x.x.173_80www.site.com.conf
Processing gonfig file:
/etc/httpd/sites/0016x.x.x.178_443www.site.com.conf
Processing config file: /etc/httpd/sites/virtualhostglobal.conf
[Thu Apr 6 09:21:10 2006] [warn] module mod_php4.c is already added, skipping
[Thu Apr 6 09:21:10 2006] [notice] Apache/1.3.33 (Darwin) PHP/4.3.11 mod_ssl/2.8.24 OpenSSL/0.9.7i configured -- resuming normal operations
[Thu Apr 6 09:21:10 2006] [notice] Accept mutex: flock (Default: flock)
When I try to hit the site on port 80 http://x.x.x.178 there are no results, https://x.x.x.178 works great.
Thanks again for your help, hopefully this can shed some light on my problem,
Jake
PowerBook, XServe G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
PowerBook Mac OS X (10.4.6)