Failed Apache2 start, no error log

Question

I would restart Apache2 but there comes an Error

$ sudo service apache2 start

Starting web server apache2

Action \'start\' failed.
The Apache error log may hav         


        

Answer 1

I ran into this problem on the Raspberry Pi. After trying everything but a reinstall, on a whim, I deleted /var/run/apache2/apache2.pid. I restarted Apache and everything worked. Not sure how to explain that.

Answer 2

You have following ways to make it work:

1. Delete /var/run/apache2/apache2.pid then check if its working

2. You can disable SELinux and then check if it works. You can disable SELinux permanantly or temporarily by using https://linux4one.com/how-to-disable-selinux-on-centos-7/ tutorial

Answer 3

Thanks, Tim! Big stumper for me. A few other details others may find helpful:

(Apache2 on Ubuntu 12.04)

I have two sites running on the same server and had just updated the SSL cert for one of them. Upon restarting the server, I got that cryptic message and neither site worked (obviously). I too found the redirect for the log files in the config files. I tracked that down and found the issue (in the log file for the site I had just updated).

My config files are located in /etc/apache2/sites-available

vim or cat the file (cat {filename}) and look for the ErrorLog line. That tells you where to look on your server. cat that file and the error message I found was:

[error] Unable to configure RSA server private key
[error] SSL Library Error: 185073780 error:0B080074:x509 certificate routines:X509_check_private_key:key values mismatch
[warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `<snip>.com' does NOT match server name!?

I had copied one of my cert files to the wrong directory. I simply moved it to the correct directory and everything was fine on the next start. (tip: where those file should be is also in the config file ;)

Answer 4

in the apache virtualhost you have to define the path to the error log file. when apache2 start for the first time it will create it automatically.

for example ErrorLog "/var/www/www.localhost.com/log-apache2/error.log" in the apache virtualhost..

Answer 5

I also just ran in to a similar problem, that is service apache2 reload fails but prints no useful information. This is because the script in /etc/init.d/apache (on Debian, at least) eats the output of the apache2ctl configtest command it runs to sanitize the Apache config.

An easy solution to get a more meaningful explanation for the failure is to run apache2ctl configtest again yourself, which will print the (hopefully useful) error messages to the console.