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Chapter 13:Apache
If you just finished editing something in your httpd.conf file, you do not need to explicitly stop
and start your server. Instead, you may use the reload command. When you use reload, you will
not need to type in your password. Your password will remain cached across reloads, but it will not
be cached between stops and starts. The reload command looks like the following:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd reload
By default, the httpd process will start automatically when your machine boots. If you are running
Apache as a secure server, you will be prompted for the secure server's password after the machine
boots, unless you generated a key for your secure server without password protection.
13.3 Configuration Directives in httpd.conf
The Apache Web server configuration file is /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.
The
httpd.conf file is well-commented and somewhat self-explanatory. Its default configuration will
work for most people, so you should not need to change the directives in httpd.conf. However,
you may want to be familiar with the most important configuration options.
The empty srm.conf and access.conf files are also in the /etc/httpd/conf directory. The
srm.conf and access.conf files were formerly used, along with httpd.conf, as configura-
tion files for Apache.
If you need to configure Apache, edit httpd.conf and then either reload, or stop and start the
httpd process. How to reload, stop and start Apache is covered in Section 13.2, Starting and Stop-
ping httpd .
Before you edit httpd.conf, you should first copy the original file to something like httpd.con-
fold, for example. By creating a backup, you can recover potential mistakes made while editing the
new configuration file.
If you do make a mistake, and your Web server does not work correctly, first review what you have
recently edited in httpd.conf. Make sure that you did not make a typo. The next place to look is
your Web server's error log (/var/log/httpd/error_log). The error log may not be easy to
interpret, depending on your level of experience. If you have just experienced a problem, however,
the last entries in the error log should provide information about what has happened.
The next sections provide short descriptions of the directives included in httpd.conf. These
descriptions are not exhaustive. If you need more information, refer to the Apache documentation
provided in HTML format at http://your_domain/manual/ or to the Apache group documentation
at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/.
For more information about mod_ssl directives, refer to the
documentation included in HTML format at http://your_domain/manual/mod/mod_ssl/, or see the
mod_ssl User Manual at http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.7/.
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