During the installation process, a Bourne shell script named httpd was saved in /etc/rc.d/init.d/. To manually stop, start, or check the status of your server, run httpd with either stop, start, or status as an argument.
To start your server, type the command:
/sbin/service httpd start |
If you are running Apache as a secure server, you will be prompted to fill in your password. After you type it in, your server will start.
To stop your server, type the command:
/sbin/service httpd stop |
The command restart is a shorthand way of stopping and then starting your server. The restart command explicitly stops and then starts your server. You will be prompted for your password if you are running Apache as a secure server. The restart command looks like the following:
/sbin/service httpd restart |
If you just finished editing something in your httpd.conf file, you do not need to explicitly stop and start your server. Instead, you can use the reload command. When you use reload, you will not need to type in your password. Your password will remain cached across reloads, but it will not be cached between stops and starts. The reload command looks like the following:
/sbin/service httpd reload |
By default, the httpd process will start automatically when your machine boots. If you are running Apache as a secure server, you will be prompted for the secure server's password after the machine boots, unless you generated a key for your secure server without password protection.