Error starting Apache (httpd start fails)

Advance apologies for the utter novice question.

In attempting to fix a slow server problem, I have somehow managed to "break" Apache. It will not now start (even when the system reboots).

Here is the error message:

It appears that port 80 is busy and not available for listening. How do I correct this?

Thanks in advance for your help.
--Clay

 

Have you checked with netstat to see what is holding the port open ?

 

you could also run Top or better yet install Htop and it will show you what process is hanging, then run

kill PID#

then start apache

 

Which distribution are you using, and how did you install Apache? Did you do any changes to the Apache configuration?

 

Thanks. Here is (some) of the information you requested.

I tried reading the man pages for netstat and I'm still not sure I have issued the command with the correct options - I tried several. It's still not obvious to me what is holding port 80 open. I would be happy to post some of the output if requested. There is no output (other than the column heading) if I simply issue netstat without options.

I have not installed HTop but did try running top. It is not obvious to me that there is a process that is hanging - how could I tell?

I installed Apache during the fc6 install (essentially following the "Installing a LAMP System with Fedora Core 6" how-to on how-to-forge). I may have may configuration changes but I don't think so (sorry to be so vague). I could post the httpd.conf file if that would be helpful. Here is the result of httpd -V:

Code:

[root@gnlewis log]# /usr/sbin/httpd -V
Server version: Apache/2.2.6 (Unix)
Server built:   Sep 18 2007 11:26:13
Server's Module Magic Number: 20051115:5
Server loaded:  APR 1.2.7, APR-Util 1.2.8
Compiled using: APR 1.2.7, APR-Util 1.2.8
Architecture:   32-bit
Server MPM:     Prefork
  threaded:     no
    forked:     yes (variable process count)
Server compiled with....
 -D APACHE_MPM_DIR="server/mpm/prefork"
 -D APR_HAS_SENDFILE
 -D APR_HAS_MMAP
 -D APR_HAVE_IPV6 (IPv4-mapped addresses enabled)
 -D APR_USE_SYSVSEM_SERIALIZE
 -D APR_USE_PTHREAD_SERIALIZE
 -D SINGLE_LISTEN_UNSERIALIZED_ACCEPT
 -D APR_HAS_OTHER_CHILD
 -D AP_HAVE_RELIABLE_PIPED_LOGS
 -D DYNAMIC_MODULE_LIMIT=128
 -D HTTPD_ROOT="/etc/httpd"
 -D SUEXEC_BIN="/usr/sbin/suexec"
 -D DEFAULT_PIDLOG="logs/httpd.pid"
 -D DEFAULT_SCOREBOARD="logs/apache_runtime_status"
 -D DEFAULT_LOCKFILE="logs/accept.lock"
 -D DEFAULT_ERRORLOG="logs/error_log"
 -D AP_TYPES_CONFIG_FILE="conf/mime.types"
 -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="conf/httpd.conf"

Thanks again for your help.

 

You can call netstat like this

Code:

netstat -ntlp

You can check your apache config like this

Code:

httpd -t

If you dont find the problem then maybe try strace to find out why apache is hanging.