Webalizer and httpd (Apache 2.0.51) - Alias directive overlaps an earlier alias

[Eric Dunbar]

Hello all, I've been running webalizer and httpd for quite some time now.

Problem:

I run webalizer to analyse my httpd (apache) log files and the
directory (www.myip.com/usage) where the results files are stored
became inaccessible (it was working fine two days ago).

When I'd restart httpd I'd see the following:

[Mon Jun 06 07:03:13 2005] [warn] The Alias directive in
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf at line 533 will probably never match
because it overlaps an earlier Alias.

This is the httpd.conf entry:
Alias /usage/ "/var/www/usage/"

<Directory "/var/www/usage/">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

This is the webalizer.conf file:
[root at localhost conf.d]# cat web*/httpd.conf
#
# This configuration file maps the webalizer log analysis
# results (generated daily) into the URL space.  By default
# these results are only accessible from the local host.
# 
Alias /usage /var/www/usage

<Location /usage>
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 127.0.0.1
    Allow from ::1
    # Allow from .example.com
</Location>

Through some odd coincidences I discovered the source of my problems
(& I also discovered that my system isn't properly locked down in the
process... a symlink to / placed in /var/www/html/ allowed me to
browse my entire HD (which is how I discovered the problem) ;-).

In /etc/httpd there's a conf.d directory in which are stored a variety
of .conf files which get loaded upon a restart/start of httpd.
webalizer.conf was in there and was causing the conflict with my
'alias usage /var/www/usage' entry in httpd.conf (& the corresponding
Directory entry... which was even more of a problem b/c the Directory
entry in webalizer.conf was very restrictive).

Solution:

rename webalizer.conf to webalizer.conf.bak (httpd only loads.conf
files from that directory). This way the alias and directory entries
in httpd.conf could function and now webalizer is happily displaying
its wares again.

Hope this helps someone else.

Eric.