httpd Command Reference
Posted by admin at September 14th, 2006
httpd - Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol Server
Synopsis
httpd [ -d serverroot ] [ -f config ] [ -C directive ] [ -c directive
] [ -D parameter ] [ -e level ] [ -E file ] [ -k start|restart|grace-
ful|stop ] [ -R directory ] [ -h ] [ -l ] [ -L ] [ -S ] [ -t ] [ -v ]
[ -V ] [ -X ]
On Windows systems, the following additional arguments are available:
httpd [ -k install|config|uninstall ] [ -n name ] [ -w ]
Summary
httpd is the Apache HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server program.
It is designed to be run as a standalone daemon process. When used
like this it will create a pool of child processes or threads to han-
dle requests.
In general, httpd should not be invoked directly, but rather should be
invoked via apachectl on Unix-based systems or as a service on Windows
NT, 2000 and XP and as a console application on Windows 9x and ME.
Options
-d serverroot
Set the initial value for the ServerRoot directive to server-
root. This can be overridden by the ServerRoot directive in the
configuration file. The default is /etc/httpd.
-f config
Uses the directives in the file config on startup. If config
does not begin with a /, then it is taken to be a path relative
to the ServerRoot. The default is conf/httpd.conf.
-k start|restart|graceful|stop
Signals httpd to start, restart, or stop. See Stopping Apache
for more information.
-C directive
Process the configuration directive before reading config
files.
-c directive
Process the configuration directive after reading config files.
-D parameter
Sets a configuration parameter which can be used with
fine> sections in the configuration files to conditionally skip
or process commands at server startup and restart.
-e level
Sets the LogLevel to level during server startup. This is use-
ful for temporarily increasing the verbosity of the error mes-
sages to find problems during startup.
-E file
Send error messages during server startup to file.
-R directory
When the server is compiled using the SHARED_CORE rule, this
specifies the directory for the shared object files.
-h Output a short summary of available command line options.
-l Output a list of modules compiled into the server. This will
not list dynamically loaded modules included using the LoadMod-
ule directive.
-L Output a list of directives together with expected arguments
and places where the directive is valid.
-S Show the settings as parsed from the config file (currently
only shows the virtualhost settings).
-t Run syntax tests for configuration files only. The program
immediately exits after these syntax parsing tests with either
a return code of 0 (Syntax OK) or return code not equal to 0
(Syntax Error). If -D DUMP_VHOSTS is also set, details of the
virtual host configuration will be printed.
-v Print the version of httpd, and then exit.
-V Print the version and build parameters of httpd, and then exit.
-X Run httpd in debug mode. Only one worker will be started and
the server will not detach from the console.
The following arguments are available only on the Windows platform:
-k install|config|uninstall
Install Apache as a Windows NT service; change startup options
for the Apache service; and uninstall the Apache service.
-n name
The name of the Apache service to signal.
-w Keep the console window open on error so that the error message
can be read.