Unable to start Apache

anjanesh · 12-30-2005, 10:37 AM

For some reason Apache is not starting / restarting.

Code:

[root@myserver root]# service httpd status
httpd is stopped
[root@myserver root]# service httpd start
Starting httpd:                                            [FAILED]
[root@myserver root]#

Any idea whats wrong ?

Thanks

stickman · 12-30-2005, 11:08 AM

Any helpful hints in the error_log?

anjanesh · 12-30-2005, 11:17 AM

This is in /var/logs/httpd

Code:

[root@myserver httpd]# ls
access_log    error_log.1  ssl_access_log   ssl_error_log.2
access_log.1  error_log.2  ssl_error_log    ssl_error_log.3
error_log     error_log.3  ssl_error_log.1  ssl_request_log
[root@myserver httpd]#

Code:

[root@myserver httpd]# tail -100 error_log
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
[root@myserver httpd]#

Code:

[root@myserver httpd]# tail /var/log/httpd/error_log
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
Unable to open logs
[root@myserver httpd]#

dimsh · 12-30-2005, 11:42 AM

is it a new problem? was Apache working and you did some configuration so it stops ?

more information is needed to help solving the problem , also your httpd.conf Log directive will be usefull.

anjanesh · 12-30-2005, 12:15 PM

What I did today morning was - using Plesk's command line utilities, I did
Code:

Code:

./domain.sh --create "mydomain.com" -clogin "userlogin" -ip "x.x.x.x" -login "username" -passwd "password"

some 700 times - which added some 700 domains. 4 returned errors like "username exits" etc but that didnt stop from creating the remaining domains. And those 4 domains were added but not active - I went to Plesk and manually changed for those 4 alone.

Could that have affected Apache ?

dimsh · 12-30-2005, 12:28 PM

I do not think this may affect apache, well, I have never used plesk before.

but as the error_log says "unable to open logs" it is mostly a permissions problem.

you may check (CustomLog and ErrorLog) directives in httpd.conf to see if they are still pointing to files in an existing directory.

anjanesh · 01-02-2006, 09:47 PM

This is what I got from support help.

Quote:

After researching the issue(s) at hand, we have determined the following:
It seems that the permissions are wrong in /etc/httpd/logs/, which is
preventing apache to restart.

/etc/httpd/logs links to /var/logs/httpd
1. So what do I have to do with /var/logs/httpd ?
2. I did cat /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf but it kept scrolling.

dimsh · 01-03-2006, 03:54 AM

Generally the log directory for apache is owned by user and group root,the main apache instance runs as root and fork the other threads to run as other user, usually apache user.

you have to make the directory /var/logs/httpd writable by owner of the main apache instance (the user who starts apache) and it should be root user in this case.

as you said if /etc/httpd/logs links to /var/logs/httpd, so changing the permissions for /etc/httpd/logs will change them for /var/logs/httpd and the link file always has 777 permissions.

what is the out put of these command:

Code:

ls -lad /var/log/httpd
ps aux|grep apache | grep Ss

this will show you the users and permissions so you can change them accordingly.

dimsh · 01-03-2006, 03:56 AM

Generally the log directory for apache is owned by user and group root,the main apache instance runs as root and fork the other threads to run as other user, usually apache user.

you have to make the directory /var/logs/httpd writable by owner of the main apache instance (the user who starts apache) and it should be root user in this case.

as you said if /etc/httpd/logs links to /var/logs/httpd, so changing the permissions for /etc/httpd/logs will change them for /var/logs/httpd and the link file always has 777 permissions.

what is the out put of these command:

Code:

ls -lad /var/log/httpd
ps aux|grep apache | grep Ss

this will show you the users and permissions so you can change them accordingly.

anjanesh · 01-03-2006, 04:28 AM

BTW, ls -l var/log/httpd gave

Code:

[root@myserver /]# ls -l var/log/httpd
total 36
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    0 Nov 20 06:02 access_log
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2454 Nov 18 23:16 access_log.1
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 5646 Dec 30 14:49 backup_error_log.2
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    0 Jan  3 06:08 error_log
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  160 Dec 30 17:18 error_log.1
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   20 Dec 30 14:19 error_log.2
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    0 Dec 30 14:49 error_log.3
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2394 Nov 27 06:02 error_log.4
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    0 Nov 18 15:40 ssl_access_log
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    0 Dec 31 06:02 ssl_error_log
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  882 Dec 31 04:53 ssl_error_log.1
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  378 Nov 26 07:21 ssl_error_log.2
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2268 Nov 20 03:50 ssl_error_log.3
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    0 Nov 18 15:40 ssl_request_log
[root@myserver /]#

Isnt this right ?
dimsh - this is the output of ls -lad /var/log/httpd

Code:

[root@myserver /]# ls -lad /var/log/httpd
drwx------  2 root root 4096 Jan  3 01:56 /var/log/httpd
[root@myserver /]#

dimsh · 01-03-2006, 05:49 AM

This output is the same as I have.

it is better to point the log directly to /var/log/httpd folder

try backing up your httpd.conf and modify the CustomLog directive to show:

Code:

CustomLog /var/log/httpd/access_log common
ErrorLog "/var/log/httpd/error_log"

and in ssl.conf also

Code:

ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/ssl_error_log
CustomLog /var/log/httpd/ssl_request_log

This should fix the permission problem.

Good luck

anjanesh · 01-03-2006, 06:12 AM

#1. BTW, I downloaded httpd.conf to my PC :

Code:

# ErrorLog: The location of the error log file.
# If you do not specify an ErrorLog directive within a <VirtualHost>
# container, error messages relating to that virtual host will be
# logged here.  If you *do* define an error logfile for a <VirtualHost>
# container, that host's errors will be logged there and not here.
#
ErrorLog logs/error_log

I did mention in my 5th post that I created added some 700+ domains using Plesk's command line utility (domain.sh).
Am I suppossed to be looking for <VirtualHost> somewhere else ? Because its defintely not there in httpd.conf file.

#2. In /var/www/vhosts/My-Domain1.com/statistics

Code:

[root@myserver statistics]# ls -l
total 20
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Nov 19 07:05 anon_ftpstat
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Dec 31 04:07 ftpstat
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Nov 20 06:07 logs
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Dec 31 06:07 webstat
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Nov 19 07:05 webstat-ssl
[root@myserver statistics]#

ls -lad /var/www/vhosts/My-Domain1.com/statistics

Code:

[root@myserver statistics]# ls -lad /var/www/vhosts/My-Domain1.com/statistics
dr-xr-x---  7 root psaserv 4096 Nov 19 07:05 /var/www/vhosts/My-Domain1.com/statistics
[root@myserver statistics]#

Are these right ?

dimsh · 01-03-2006, 06:34 AM

you may seek the VirtualHost directive in the included files, as I told you, I did not used plesk before, but I suppose that each virtual server you add will have its configuration in a seperated file and that file will be included in the main httpd.conf using the Include directive.

anjanesh · 01-03-2006, 06:57 AM

The last line in httpd.conf does contain Include /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.include.
I downloaded /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.include and has a lot of stuff in it.
But last 700+ lines contain

Code:

Include /var/www/vhosts/My-Domain001.com/conf/httpd.include
.
# lot of other stuff here
.
Include /var/www/vhosts/My-Domain002.com/conf/httpd.include
Include /var/www/vhosts/My-Domain002.com/conf/httpd.include
.
.
.
Include /var/www/vhosts/My-Domain700.com/conf/httpd.include

Im beginning to think if I need to replace Include /var/www/vhosts/My-Domain-xxx.com/conf/httpd.include with Include "/var/www/vhosts/My-Domain-xxx.com/conf/httpd.include" - since many domain names contain other characters. Could this be a possibility ?

anjanesh · 01-03-2006, 12:23 PM

Apparently this is an issue with Plesk + Linux Package settings.
Plesk requires Apache, PHP ,SSL to be recompiled to meet Plesk's requirements.
http://kb.swsoft.com/article_41_260_en.html

I deleted 400 domains from 700 and all of a sudden the site's back - Apache started working again !