Restart httpd after changes in the httpd.conf

Question

Do I need to restart httpd after changes in the httpd.conf file for changes to take effect?

Answer 1

You can have apache re-read its config files without restarting by sudo apachectl graceful (or apache2ctl on debian).

From the Apache docs:

Gracefully restarts the Apache httpd daemon. If the daemon is not running, it is started. This differs from a normal restart in that currently open connections are not aborted. [...] This command automatically checks the configuration files as in configtest before initiating the restart to make sure Apache doesn't die.