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: Loads the org.apache.httpd launchd job.
stop, graceful-stop: Unloads the org.apache.httpd launchd job.
restart, graceful: Unloads, then loads the org.apache.httpd launchd job.
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.
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 directives and then use the normal apachectl start.