apache2ctl - Apache HTTP server control interface
When acting in SysV init mode, apache2ctl takes simple, one-word
commands, defined below.
apachectl command
apache2ctl command
When acting in pass-through mode, apache2ctl can take all the
arguments available for the httpd binary.
apachectl [httpd-argument]
apache2ctl [httpd-argument]
apache2ctl is a front end to the Apache HyperText Transfer
Protocol (HTTP) server. It is designed to help the administrator control the
functioning of the Apache apache2 daemon.
NOTE: The default Debian configuration requires the
environment variables APACHE_RUN_USER, APACHE_RUN_GROUP, and
APACHE_PID_FILE to be set in /etc/apache2/envvars.
The apache2ctl script returns a 0 exit value on success,
and >0 if an error occurs. For more details, view the comments in the
script.
The command can be any one or more of the following
options:
- start
- Start the Apache daemon. Gives an error if it is already running.
- stop
- Stops the Apache daemon.
- restart
- Restarts the Apache daemon by sending it a SIGHUP. If the daemon is not
running, it is started. This command automatically checks the
configuration files via configtest before initiating the restart to
to catch the most obvious errors. However, it is still possible for the
daemon to die because of problems with the configuration.
- fullstatus
- Displays a full status report from mod_status. For this to work,
you need to have mod_status enabled on your server and a text-based
browser such as lynx available on your system. The URL used to
access the status report can be set by setting the APACHE_STATUSURL
variable in /etc/apache2/envvars.
- status
- Displays a brief status report. Similar to the fullstatus option, except
that the list of requests currently being served is omitted.
- graceful
- Gracefully restarts the Apache daemon by sending it a SIGUSR1. If the
daemon is not running, it is started. This differs from a normal restart
in that currently open connections are not aborted. A side effect is that
old log files will not be closed immediately. This means that if used in a
log rotation script, a substantial delay may be necessary to ensure that
the old log files are closed before processing them. This command
automatically checks the configuration files via apache2ctl configtest
before initiating the restart to to catch the most obvious errors.
However, it is still possible for the daemon to die because of problems
with the configuration.
- graceful-stop
- Gracefully stops the Apache httpd daemon. This differs from a normal stop
in that currently open connections are not aborted. A side effect is that
old log files will not be closed immediately.
- configtest
- Run a configuration file syntax test. It parses the configuration files
and either reports Syntax Ok or information about the particular
syntax error. This test does not catch all errors.
- help
- Displays a short help message.
- The following option was
available in earlier versions but has been removed.
- startssl
- To start httpd with SSL support, you should edit your configuration file
to include the relevant directives and then use the normal apache2ctl
start.
The behaviour of apache2ctl can be influenced with these
environment variables: APACHE_HTTPD, APACHE_LYNX,
APACHE_STATUSURL, APACHE_ULIMIT_MAX_FILES,
APACHE_RUN_DIR, APACHE_LOCK_DIR, APACHE_RUN_USER,
APACHE_ARGUMENTS, APACHE_ENVVARS. See the comments in the
script for details. These variables (except APACHE_ENVVARS) can be
set in /etc/apache2/envvars.
apache2(8),
/usr/share/doc/apache2/README.Debian.gz