Hi everybody.

I just picked up my Linode yesterday. I have it all setup with the LAMP stack and a couple of virtual hosts for domains I own.

This is the first non-managed web server I have used in probably about six years or so, so it's been a little rough after sitting behind Ubuntu and Windows desktops, rarely using the terminals.

I'll get to the point. What do most people (admins/IT) do when a website is accessed directly from the servers IP address? For example, when my IP address is entered into a browser I get the default "It works" index.html page located in /var/www

So what do most people do or what is a good thing to do with this situation? Should I create a symbolic link to one of my other websites directory? Or what are some other better options?

Thanks, Mike

Why would anyone connect to your web server by it's IP addr?

Redirect it to NSA's homepage or Midget Bowling.

I put "what?" into index.html

Yuh know, I don't know ha. I was just wondering I guess if there was some standard that most people conform to, to handle the IP address.

The usual options:

Leave it blank.
Redirect to your main website.
Post a little message that nobody will see.

Other options of increasing nastiness:

Redirect to Google or some other benign website.
Embed this video.
Redirect in an infinite loop.
Redirect to some three-letter agency to scare the visitor.
Redirect to all three-letter agencies at the same time, using a large number of popups.
Link to random websites of questionable legality, causing the visitor to get busted by one of the aforementioned three-letter agencies.

After all, only bad guys type IP addresses into their browsers, right?

Enable mod rewrite.

Create a vhost config file so that its name appears first alphabetically.

<code>

<VirtualHost *:80>

CustomLog /path/to/access.log combined

RewriteEngine On

RewriteLog /path/to/rewrite.log
RewriteLogLevel 4

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^127.0.0.1$
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^put your ip here$

RewriteRule .* - [R=404]

KeepAlive Off

</VirtualHost>

</code>

Everyone but you will received Apache: 404 Not Found