apache vhost config - why doesn't this work

Question

I have an ubuntu with the the following config file:

<VirtualHost *:80> ServerName dev.domain.com DocumentRoot /data/sites/dev.domain.com/www/public </VirtualHost> 

Other vhost files are being served correctly on this host. It is properly symlinked; the directory exists. Is there a reason why this is not working? I don't see anything in the standard apache server logs.

thx

edit:
this is an ubuntu host and many other vhosts using the standard sites-available / sites-enabled are working. One issue is that it runs both mod_php and phusion mod_rails.

@Lain here's the output from a2ensite: jon@ve:/etc/apache2/sites-available$ sudo sudo a2ensite /etc/apache2/apache2.conf ERROR: No site found matching /etc/apache2/apache2.conf!

here's the output from apache2ctl -S (thx for this - I had always wondered how to to do this)

 jon@ve:/etc/apache2/sites-available$ /usr/sbin/apache2ctl -S VirtualHost configuration: wildcard NameVirtualHosts and _default_ servers: *:80 is a NameVirtualHost default server ve.vesrv.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:1) port 80 namevhost ve.vesrv.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:1) port 80 namevhost testfb.hex.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/001-testfb:1) port 80 namevhost testfb2.hex.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/002-testfb2:1) .... port 80 namevhost rails-dev.rtm.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/018-rails-dev.rtm.com:1) port 80 namevhost dev.domain.com (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/019-dev.domain.com:6) Syntax OK jon@ve:/etc/apache2/sites-available$ 

Answer 1

Add to the file, between <VirtualHost>...</VirtualHost>:

<Directory /data/sites/dev.domain.com/www/public> Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> 

Make sure you have NameVirtualHost *:80 somewhere before this file is loaded. (You can stick it just before <VirtualHost *:80> to be sure.)

EDIT 2: Make sure you sudo a2ensite config_file config_file is the file that contains the <VirtualHost> block. Should be /etc/apache2/sites-available/dev.domain.com.conf and you should use sudo a2ensite dev.domain.com.conf

Make sure you sudo apahce2ctl restart

EDIT:

Regarding logs, not sure what your global conf is. You may need this within <VirtualHost>...</VirtualHost>:

 ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/dev.domain.com-error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/dev.domain.com-access.log combined 

Answer 2

If you really have created a vhost called dev.domain.com then unless you have created your own DNS entry for it, it will not be resolving to your server so you won't see anything. It seems unlikely that you are the owner of domain.com so it's a not a good idea to be creating vhosts and DNS entries for it's sub domains yourself. Better to create a vhost and DNS entries for a domain that you control.