Setting up virtual hosts for Rails apps on Apache and Mongrel

Question

I have a single Linux server running 3 site on Apache. Let's call them RailsApp1, RailsApp2, and SimpleApp. Both Rails applications are using Mongrel clusters. The other application is just a single HTML file. I have different Virtual Host files setup in Apache for each site, as well as mongrel_cluster.yml files for both Rails sites (code for all this is at the bottom).

With everything setup, I can enable the sites in Apache just fine. And I can start the Mongrel clusters for each Rails site just fine. And, in fact, visiting www.simpleapp.com and www.railsapp1.com in my browser works just fine. However, www.railsapp2.com gives me a ton of trouble. Instead of showing the code for railsapp2, the server returns the HTML for railsapp1. If I disable railsapp1 in Apache and then go to www.railsapp2.com, the server now returns the HTML for simpleapp. Only if I disable both railsapp1 and railsapp2 in Apache will the server correctly respond to a request at www.railsapp2.com.

Any thoughts on why this might be happening?

SimpleApp's VHOST File:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.simpleapp.com
  ServerAlias simpleapp.com
  DocumentRoot /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/simpleapp
</VirtualHost>

RailsApp1's VHOST File:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName railsapp1.com
  DocumentRoot /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp1/public
  RewriteEngine On
  <Proxy balancer://mongrel1>
    BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:5000
    BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:5001
    BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:5002
  </Proxy>
  # Timeout in 30 seconds
  ProxyTimeout 30
  # Make sure people go to www.railsapp1.com, not railsapp1.com
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^railsapp1\.com$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.railsapp1.com$1 [R=301,NE,L]
  # Redirect all non-static requests to thin
  RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteRule ^/mongrel1(.*)$ balancer://mongrel1%{REQUEST_URI} [P,QSA,L]
  # Proxy Stuff
  ProxyPass / balancer://mongrel1/
  ProxyPassReverse / balancer://mongrel1/
  ProxyPreserveHost on
  <Proxy *>
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
  </Proxy>
  # Custom log file locations
  ErrorLog  /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp1/log/error.log
  CustomLog /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp1/log/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

RailsApp2's VHOST File:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName railsapp2.com
  DocumentRoot /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp2/public
  RewriteEngine On
  <Proxy balancer://mongrel2>
    BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:6000
    BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:6001
    BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:6002
  </Proxy>
  # Timeout in 30 seconds
  ProxyTimeout 30
  # Make sure people go to www.railsapp2.com, not railsapp2.com
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^railsapp2\.com$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.railsapp2.com$1 [R=301,NE,L]
  # Redirect all non-static requests to thin
  RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteRule ^/mongrel2(.*)$ balancer://mongrel2%{REQUEST_URI} [P,QSA,L]
  # Proxy Stuff
  ProxyPass / balancer://mongrel2/
  ProxyPassReverse / balancer://mongrel2/
  ProxyPreserveHost on
  <Proxy *>
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
  </Proxy>
  # Custom log file locations
  ErrorLog  /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp2/log/error.log
  CustomLog /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp2/log/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

RailsApp1's mongrel_cluster.yml File:

---
address: 127.0.0.1
log_file: log/mongrel.log
port: 5000
cwd: /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp1
environment: production
pid_file: /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp1/tmp/pids/mongrel.pid
servers: 3

RailsApp2's mongrel_cluster.yml File:

---
address: 127.0.0.1
log_file: log/mongrel.log
port: 6000
cwd: /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp2
environment: production
pid_file: /home/nudecanaltroll/public_html/railsapp2/tmp/pids/mongrel.pid
servers: 3

Answer 1

I figured it out. For reasons unknown to me, I needed to set the ServerAlias for RailsApp2, and also add "www." in front of ServerName. So the top of the railsapp2.com vhost file now looks like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.railsapp2.com
  ServerAlias railsapp2.com
  ...

For some reason, RailsApp1 doesn't require these changes to function correctly.