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APACHECTL(8)                                          apachectl                                          APACHECTL(8)



NAME
       apachectl - Apache HTTP Server Control Interface


SYNOPSIS
       When acting in pass-through mode, apachectl can take all the arguments available for the httpd binary.


       apachectl [ httpd-argument ]


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


       apachectl command



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


       If  your  Apache  installation  uses non-standard paths, you will need to edit the apachectl script to set the
       appropriate paths to the httpd binary. You can also specify any necessary httpd command  line  arguments.  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.



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



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

       stop   Stops the Apache httpd daemon. This is equivalent to apachectl -k stop.

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

       fullstatus
              Displays a full status report from mod_status. For this to work, you need to have mod_status enabled on

       graceful-stop
              Gracefully stops the Apache httpd daemon. This differs from a normal stop in that currently  open  con‐
              nections  are  not aborted. A side effect is that old log files will not be closed immediately. This is
              equivalent to apachectl -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 apachectl -t.


       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 direc‐
              tives and then use the normal apachectl start.




Apache HTTP Server                                    2005-08-26                                         APACHECTL(8)