Apache won't start because...

nutnut · 10-07-2006, 08:16 AM

Hi,

Just having a bit of trouble getting Apache to start. I'm running a set of conf files written to support load balancing over Mongrel servers, instead of the default.

When I attempt to start Apache (2.2.3), error_log is populated with:

Code:

[Sat Oct 07 14:15:08 2006] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sat Oct 07 14:15:09 2006] [warn] pid file /usr/local/apache2/logs/httpd.pid overwritten -- Unclean shutdown of previous Apache run?
[Sat Oct 07 14:15:09 2006] [alert] getpwuid: couldn't determine user name from uid 4294967295, you probably need to modify the User directive
[Sat Oct 07 14:15:09 2006] [alert] getpwuid: couldn't determine user name from uid 4294967295, you probably need to modify the User directive
[Sat Oct 07 14:15:09 2006] [alert] getpwuid: couldn't determine user name from uid 4294967295, you probably need to modify the User directive
[Sat Oct 07 14:15:09 2006] [notice] Apache/2.2.3 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.3 OpenSSL/0.9.7e configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Oct 07 14:15:09 2006] [alert] Child 1120 returned a Fatal error... Apache is exiting!
[Sat Oct 07 14:15:09 2006] [alert] getpwuid: couldn't determine user name from uid 4294967295, you probably need to modify the User directive
[Sat Oct 07 14:15:09 2006] [alert] getpwuid: couldn't determine user name from uid 4294967295, you probably need to modify the User directive

I'm not really sure what any of these mean, and so would be very greatful if someone could help me out here

.

Kind regards,
James

w3bd3vil · 10-08-2006, 03:48 AM

getpwuid is searching for a uid which it doesnt find. you could try creating a user with that uid or change the uid to point to your nobody, apache, www-data or whatever.

ShellyCat · 12-22-2010, 08:49 PM

This was myy first time installing Apache manually on Linux. I had the same issue and did what was said. To be specific, add the following (outside of any directive) to "httpd.conf":

Code:

User nobody
Group nobody

It solved this same problem for me. (You can also set the User and Group to daemon, which is easier because you only have to "touch /usr/local/apache2/logs/error_log" and "chmod 755 error_log" to get rid of errors regarding logs.)

In addition, sometimes I noticed restarting Linux got rid of the "unable to bind to port" errors.

Also (nothing to do with the above), I was surprised that with the Slackware package, the "httpd.conf" included with the Linux download was empty, and that there was no "httpd-default.conf" (this does not apply to the source from Apache itself). I found out that they stuck it in a different directory for Linux: you can find "httpd-default.conf" in "/etc/httpd/extra". So just do this:

Code:

rm /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
cp /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-default.conf /etc/httpd/httpd.conf