apachectl

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: September 1997
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NAME

apachectl - Apache HTTP server control interface

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.

NOTE: If your Apache installation uses non-standard paths, you will need to edit the apachectl script to set the appropriate paths to your PID file and your httpd binary. See the comments in the script for details.

The apachectl script returns a 0 exit value on success, and >0 if an error occurs. For more details, view the comments in the script.

Full documentation for Apache is available at http://www.apache.org/

OPTIONS

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 make sure Apache doesn't die.
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 editing the STATUSURL variable in the script.
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 configtest before initiating the restart to make sure Apache doesn't die.
configtest: Run a configuration file syntax test. It parses the configuration files and either reports Syntax Ok or detailed information about the particular syntax error.
help: Displays a short help message.