APACHECTL2(8)

NAME
apachectl2 - Apache HTTP Server Control Interface

SYNOPSIS

When acting in pass-through mode, apachectl2 can take all the arguments available for the httpd2 binary.

apachectl2 [ httpd-argument ]

When acting in SysV init mode, apachectl2 takes simple, one-word commands, defined below.

apachectl2 command

SUMMARY

apachectl2 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 httpd2 daemon.

The apachectl2 script can operate in two modes. First, it can act as a simple front-end to the httpd2 command that simply sets any necessary environment variables and then invokes httpd2, passing through any command line arguments. Second, apachectl2 can act as a SysV init script, taking simple one-word arguments like start, restart, and stop, and translating them into appropriate signals to httpd2.

If your Apache installation uses non-standard paths, you will need to edit the apachectl2 script to set the appropriate paths to the httpd2 binary. You can also specify any necessary httpd2 command line arguments. See the comments in the script for details.

The apachectl2 script returns a 0 exit value on success, and >0 if an error occurs. For more details, view the comments in the script.

OPTIONS

Only the SysV init-style options are defined here. Other arguments are defined on the httpd2 manual page.

start
    Start the Apache httpd2 daemon. Gives an error if it is already running. This is equivalent to apachectl2 -k start.

stop
    Stops the Apache httpd2 daemon. This is equivalent to apachectl2 -k stop.

restart
    Restarts the Apache httpd2 daemon. If the daemon is not running, it is started. This command automatically checks the configuration files as in configtest before initiating the restart to make sure the daemon doesn't die. This is equivalent to apachectl2 -k restart.

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 httpd2 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 command automatically checks the configuration files as in configtest before initiating the restart to make sure Apache doesn't die. This is equivalent to apachectl2 -k graceful.

graceful-stop
    Gracefully stops the Apache httpd2 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 apachectl2 -k graceful-stop.

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. This is equivalent to apachectl2 -t.

The following option was available in earlier versions but has been removed.

startssl
    To start httpd2 with SSL support, you should edit your configuration file to include the relevant directives and then use the normal apachectl2 start.