Subdomain folder content returns 404, but root level works

Question

I am setting up a subdomain - subdomain.example.com for my existing example.com to serve application with distinct origin

Using DNS manager of my registrar, DNS Manager: type CNAME, name: subdomain, points to @

And in my Apache 2.4 sites-available I have the existing example.com.confand example.com-ssl.conf so I made a new vhost for my subdomain, subdomain.example.com.conf and subdomain.example.com-ssl.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
        DocumentRoot "/var/www/subdomain/public_html"
        ServerName subdomain.example.com
        <Directory /var/www/subdomain/public_html>
           AllowOverride All
           Order Allow,Deny
           Allow from All
        </Directory>
        LogLevel trace5
        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/subdomain-error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/subdomain-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Server Folders:

/var/www/subdomain/public_html
/var/www/subdomain/public_html/icons

If I browse to subdomain URL, it works fine: http://subdomain.example.com works

Now if I browse to any subdirectory content, it returns 404: http://subdomain.example.com/icons/icon.png

Not Found The requested URL was not found on this server.

subdomain-error.log error: AH00128: File does not exist: /usr/share/apache2/icons/icon.png

What am I doing wrong? Or there is an something else causing this?

Stephen Ostermiller · Accepted Answer · 2021-09-15T20:27:32.763

The problem is in a default configuration file that is included with Apache2 from Debian and Ubuntu: /etc/apache2/mods-available/alias.conf which has:

# We include the /icons/ alias for FancyIndexed directory listings.  If
# you do not use FancyIndexing, you may comment this out.
Alias /icons/ "/usr/share/apache2/icons/"

You can comment out that line in the configuration, or delete the sym-link to that configuration file so that Apache doesn't use it: sudo rm -f /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/alias.conf. After making configuration changes, you need to tell Apache to reload all its configuration: sudo service apache2 reload.

Another option is to choose a different directory name for the icons on your own site. You might want to choose a different name, because edited configuration files could get reverted to the original when upgrading Apache.

Subdomain folder content returns 404, but root level works

1 Answers1