[tlug] Did Apache change everything? (Setting up virtual hosts)

[Dave M G <dave@example.com>]

TLUG,

Recently I needed to set up a virtual named host on my laptop. It's a
clean install of Ubuntu Karmic 9.10.

I've set up LAMP servers on Ubuntu many times now, so I've got it down
to a science.

Or so I thought.

When it comes to naming virtual hosts, what I used to do was simply open
up /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and edit it.

This time, though, when I opened /etc/apache2/httpd.conf, it was
suspiciously empty. I tried adding my usual configurations, but when I
restarted Apache, my site was nowhere to be found.

So I looked on line, and now it seems everything is handled in a
directory called /etc/apache2/sites-available and basically all the
configurations are now done in a different way.

F**k.

I made an effort to figure out how to do this, and went through many
variants of new settings that did not work.

Here's my current situation. I created a file for my site, called
local_site.com in /etc/apache2/sites-available and put in the following
configuration (taken off the web)

- - - - -

<VirtualHost *>
        ServerName www.local_site.com
        ServerAlias local_site.com
        ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com

        DocumentRoot /var/www/local_site.com
        <Directory /var/www/local_site.com/>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                # pcw AllowOverride None
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
                # This directive allows us to have apache2's default
start page
                # in /apache2-default/, but still have / go to the right
place
                # Commented out for Ubuntu
                #RedirectMatch ^/$ /apache2-default/
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/local_site.com/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/local_site.com/access.log combined
        ServerSignature On

</VirtualHost>

- - - - -

Then I ran "sudo a2ensite local_site.com", and it said "enabled".

So far so good.

Then I reloaded and restarted Apache, and it said:

[fail]

No error output, no nothing. Just [fail].

I went to http://local_site.com and sometimes when I do, I get the
default "It works!" page. Which I also get if I go to http://localhost.

But sometimes if I reload it, I then get an "unable to connect" warning.

I went online and found instructions for editing ports.conf and
apache2.conf, but basically any and all edits I made to those files
resulted in errors coming out when I restarted Apache. So for now I've
put them back to their original.

And, lastly, I checked the error logs in /var/log/apache2, but they just
have a long string of instances of saying "error log at
/var/www/local_site.com/error.log not found".

I'm going to skip past the bitching about having to learn new crap to
accomplish the same tasks...

What am I supposed to do to get my virtual host working?

Thanks for any advice.

-- 
Dave M G

So... what c