New Azure VM says InvalidQueryParameterValue comp - azure

Question

I created a new Azure VM, installed the LAMP stack, and when I visit the domain name in a browser, it serves the following error, which I am unable to find any information on through Google or Stack Overflow:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Error><Code>InvalidQueryParameterValue</Code><Message>Value for one of the query parameters specified in the request URI is invalid.
RequestId:45ba52f4-0001-0086-13ed-e545cf000000
Time:2015-09-03T02:07:58.4816344Z</Message><QueryParameterName>comp</QueryParameterName><QueryParameterValue /><Reason /></Error>
When I use wget http://localhost while logged in through SSH, I get this error instead:
--2015-09-03 02:05:57-- http://localhost/
Resolving localhost (localhost)... 127.0.0.1
Connecting to localhost (localhost)|127.0.0.1|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 65 [text/html]
index.html: Permission denied
Cannot write to ‘index.html’ (Permission denied).
The apache config for the default site is plain:
<VirtualHost *:80>
# The ServerName directive sets the request scheme, hostname and port that
# the server uses to identify itself. This is used when creating
# redirection URLs. In the context of virtual hosts, the ServerName
# specifies what hostname must appear in the request's Host: header to
# match this virtual host. For the default virtual host (this file) this
# value is not decisive as it is used as a last resort host regardless.
# However, you must set it for any further virtual host explicitly.
#ServerName www.example.com
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
# Available loglevels: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
# error, crit, alert, emerg.
# It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
# modules, e.g.
#LogLevel info ssl:warn
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
# For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
# enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
# include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
# following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
# after it has been globally disabled with "a2disconf".
#Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf
</VirtualHost>
How do I get this VM to start serving using Apache?

Answer 1

This can occur on the 'Static Website hosting' feature if you point your CNAME to the wrong Azure server.
You must use the server DNS name that contains web in the name and not blob.

Answer 2

The first error (when opening from Internet) is (most probably) showing that you do not try to access the VM URL, but another service instead (i.e. Azure storage service, or some other Azure service)
To make things more confusing for newcommers Microsoft has now 2 parallel types of services - one is called classic and the other is called resource manager. In order to give you best answer, I have to know how did you create your VM - using the classic or using the resource manager (or shortly ARM) mode. If it was the clasic, your VM should live in a domain something like: mylinuxvm.cloudapp.net. You can check this going to the management portal then selecting VM and checking its settings / properties. Is it is the case, the only thing you need to add is an Endpoint for port 80, so that Internet traffic coming on TCP port 80 will be redirected to your VM.
If it is an ARM VM, you need a network security group rule that will send traffic on port 80 to your public IP Address, which has to be associated with the VM.
The second error:
When I use wget http://localhost while logged in through SSH, I get
this error instead:
--2015-09-03 02:05:57-- http://localhost/ Resolving localhost (localhost)... 127.0.0.1 Connecting to localhost
(localhost)|127.0.0.1|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting
response... 200 OK Length: 65 [text/html] index.html: Permission
denied
Cannot write to ‘index.html’ (Permission denied).
You get because you are using wget instead of curl. The difference is that curl will just render the result in stdout while wget tries to downalod and save the contet. The error is quite clear:
Cannot write to ‘index.html’ (Permission denied).
Which means you are executing the command in a folder to which you do not have write permission. This is usally the home of the root user when you do not do sudo before executing the command.