Software virtual servers work using the HTTP/1.1 Host header. If the end user’s browser does not send the Host header, or if the server cannot find the virtual server specified by the Host header, Sun Java System Web Server handles the request using a default virtual server. Also, for hardware virtual servers, if Sun Java System Web Server cannot find the virtual server corresponding to the IP address, it displays the default virtual server. You can configure the default virtual server to send an error message or serve pages from a special document root.
You can specify a default virtual server for an individual listen socket and for the server instance. If a given listen socket does not have a default virtual server, the server instance’s default virtual server is used.
You can specify a default virtual server for a listen socket by:
Setting or changing the default virtual server information using the Edit Listen Sockets page on the Preferences tab of the Server Manger.
Editing the defaultvs attribute of the CONNECTIONGROUP element in the server.xml file. For more information about server.xml, see the Sun Java System Web Server 6.1 SP8 Administrator’s Configuration File Reference.