apachectl - Man Page
Server control interface for httpd
Examples (TL;DR)
- Start the server:
sudo apachectl start - Restart the server:
sudo apachectl restart - Stop the server:
sudo apachectl stop - Test configuration file validity:
apachectl configtest - Check server status (requires the lynx browser):
apachectl status - Reload configuration without dropping connections:
sudo apachectl graceful - Print full Apache configuration (not always supported):
apachectl -S - Display help:
apachectl -h
Synopsis
apachectl [command]
Description
apachectl 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 httpd daemon.
The apachectl script takes one-word arguments like start, restart, and stop, and translates them into appropriate signals to httpd.
The apachectl script returns a 0 exit value on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
Compatibility
The version of apachectl used on this system is a replacement script intended to be mostly (but not completely) compatible with the version provided with Apache httpd. This apachectl mostly acts as a wrapper around systemctl and manipulates the systemd service for httpd. The interface to the Apache version of apachectl is described at https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/apachectl.html.
The following differences are present in the version of apachectl present on this system:
- Option arguments passed when starting httpd are not allowed. These should be configured in the systemd service directly (see httpd.service(8)).
- The "fullstatus" option is not available.
- The "status" option does not use or rely on the running server's server-status output.
Options
- start
Start the Apache httpd daemon. Gives an error if it is already running. This is equivalent to systemctl start httpd.service.
- stop
Stops the Apache httpd daemon. This is equivalent to systemctl stop httpd.service.
- restart
Restarts the Apache httpd daemon. If the daemon is not running, it is started. This is equivalent to systemctl restart httpd.service.
- status
Displays a brief status report. This is equivalent to systemctl status httpd.service.
- graceful
Gracefully restarts the Apache httpd daemon. 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 is equivalent to systemctl kill --signal=SIGUSR1 --kill-who=main httpd.service.
- 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. This is equivalent to systemctl kill --signal=SIGWINCH --kill-who=main httpd.service.
- configtest | -t
Run a configuration file syntax test. It parses the configuration files and either reports Syntax OK or detailed information about the particular syntax error. This is equivalent to httpd -t.
Reporting Bugs
Please report bugs by filing an issue in https://bugzilla.redhat.com/.
See Also
httpd(8), httpd.conf(5), systemd(1), systemctl(1), httpd.service(8)
Authors
Apache Software Foundation contributors
Apache man page
Frank Dana
Fedora man page