I just installed RHEL 5 on a new server, and I can't start up the pre-installed apache 2.2

sudo /etc/init.d/httpd start
sudo /etc/service httpd start

both return [FAILED] and nothing else. I checked out /var/log/httpd and the folder was empty. /var/log/messages shows nothing, neither does dmesg or any other logs I can find. i ran the config test (through apachectl and through /usr/sbin/httpd) and both said "Syntax ok."

interestingly enough, if I do

sudo /usr/sbin/httpd -k start

it works just fine. trying to do that as the apache user gives me an error about not having permission to bind to port 80, but since it's < 1024 I believe that's normal behavior.

I tried messing with the /etc/init.d/httpd startup script, I commented out the whole start section and replaced it with just $httpd but that didn't help one bit. I've triple checked that $httpd and $apachectl are correct.


I should mention that I severely locked down this server. I used to /etc/hosts.deny file to prevent access to anything. /etc/hosts.allow allows just sshd and httpd. I went through all the services starting up and disabled a great many of them. I think I did a pretty thorough job of securing it, but I've done this before and never seen this problem before.

any ideas are welcome, thanks.

I think I found the solution, for those who come later. Apparently selinux was interfering. I ran

sudo system-config-securitylevel

and even though it said it was disabled, I went to customize, and specifically allowed incoming connections for www and ssh. I said OK and tried running the startup script again, and this time it worked just fine. Interestingly enough, ssh connections were working before - I never had any trouble with them.

I have had a problem like that. My httpd didn´t start and no error message.
I have copied http.conf.bak to httpd.conf and it worked. The grafic config interface messed my http.conf. I have red something in the documentation.

I hope have been useful...