Ryfujk

I'm trying to move our production webserver over to a linux box. When I issue the start command using apachectl, nothing happens, and it goes back to the command line. If I run apachectl status, it tells me "ELinks: Connection refused".

However, if I try and start apache directly using httpd -k start, it starts the apache process just fine.

Any ideas as to why I can't use apachectl to start it? Also, is it a big deal to just start it by issuing the httpd -k start command? I would just always start it that way, but am worried about the following line from the apache documentation

In general, httpd should not be invoked directly, but rather should be invoked via apachectl on Unix-based systems

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/programs/httpd.html

What errors are you recieving from the apachectl command? apachectl is nothing more than a shell script, so you can debug it by invoking it with sh -x /path/to/apachectl start. You will see ALOT of information get spilled to the screen. If you aren't recieving any errors, or output and there are no httpd processes running on the system, you might want to look at your log files, such as /var/log/messages.

Additionally, after running the apachectl start command you could also issue echo $? to see the exit status code. These are all things that you could provide so that we can further help out.

For what its worth, I downloaded the Apache packages AFTER I installed the base Linux system. They compiled fine, but did not warn that the links package was missing.

• 
  

  so, make certain you have run yum install links.

  
  
  

  Also, nothing was mentioned in the documentation about the difference between two similar looking files in different locations: apachectl in /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl and usr/sbin/apachectl. I ended up using the /usr/sbin/apachectl. /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl to this day still returns an error: /usr/local/apache2/apachectl: line 94: lynx: command not found. No idea why. Apache's work with the /usr/sbin/apachectl version however.

  
  



• [root@]# ls -l /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl
  
  -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 3428 Jan 27 12:11 /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl




• [root@]# ls -l /usr/sbin/apachectl
  
  -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 3916 Dec  8 12:10 /usr/sbin/apachectl

I was stuck getting through all the intricacies of the file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf. I'm all for web-security, but for clueless newbies like myself, its a bugger to have to wade into a plethora of Internet help files, like this one, to finally get a simple service to start.

For anybody else getting stuck in getting apachectl status to return a decent value - I bet you're also getting stuck where I was with the default values not being all that good in the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file. Uncomment and modify the appropriate sections. You may want to order Allow from all in the <Location /server-info> and <Location /server-status> points just to be sure your service is starting properly. Make sure to always restart the service with service httpd restart. Then, you can pare down access and return to Deny from all rules when you know your Apache server's running well.

I also faced the same issue, to fix this issue I need to enable server-status in httpd.conf file, as ./apachectl status command trying to connect server-status page which by default not configured

[root@bin]# ./apachectl status

                                   Not Found



   The requested URL /server-status was not found on this server.





[root@bin]# sh -x ./apachectl status

+ ACMD=status

+ ARGV=status

+ HTTPD=/usr/local/rail_apache/bin/httpd

+ test -f /usr/local/rail_apache/bin/envvars

+ . /usr/local/rail_apache/bin/envvars

++ test x '!=' x

++ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/rail_apache/lib

++ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

+ LYNX='links -dump'

+ STATUSURL=http://example.com:80/server-status

++ ulimit -H -n

+ ULIMIT_MAX_FILES='ulimit -S -n 4096'

+ '[' 'xulimit -S -n 4096' '!=' x ']'

+ ulimit -S -n 4096

+ ERROR=0

+ '[' xstatus = x ']'

+ case $ACMD in

+ links -dump http://example.com:80/server-status

+ awk ' /process$/ { print; exit } { print } '

                                   Not Found



   The requested URL /server-status was not found on this server.

+ exit 0

If you had an same issue as below:
+ awk ' /process$/ { print; exit } { print } '
Not Found

The requested URL /server-status was not found on this server.

you need to fix it:
1. vim /sbin/apacheclt find STATUSURL="http://localhost:80/server-status" then change STATUSURL="http://localhost:80/"
2. restart apacheclt , it appear the content:
[root@CentOS6-07 ~]# /sbin/apachectl status
It works!