Apache startup common issues and solutions

Mostly we face below two issues all the time and there are few common solutions to the problem. Please go through the details below.

1. Apache HTTP Server not starting.
2. Unable to accept incoming connections in a server machine.

1. Apache HTTP Server not starting.

This is a very standard issue which is noticed while starting the ApacheHTTPServer service on windows. The possible reasons could be the following services. These services, if they are running, will occupy the port 80 in your machine and as a result you will not be able to start the ApacheHTTPServer  service.

a. IIS – Just stop this service before trying to start Apache on port 80 in your machine.

b. Skype – This seems to occupy the port 80 in your machine by default. If you have to use Skype in your machine, please make sure you have reconfigured your Skype to not occupy port 80.

c. OracleHTTPServer – This service also should be stopped before starting the Apache on your machine.

2. Unable to accept incoming connections in a server machine

a. Windows XP has some builtin firewall settings where all the incoming connections can be blocked. Disable this firewall setting or add the relevant port numbers as exceptions in the firewall setting.

If this is not disabled, you cannot access the application installed on the server machine.

3. On Unix is related issue in running Apache as user root:

1. When we start Apache as “root“, Apache goes by the “User” directive in the Apache config file httpd.conf to spawn the httpd processes.

To check as what user httpd is running simply type ps -elf | grep httpd and you will see the owner of httpd (the apache process). Or you can look at owner of the httpd log files inside Apache/logs directory.

2. By default, this user will be set to username “nobody”, which will be present in most machines, but will not have enough permissions most of the time.

3. Typically “nobody” user should have access permissions to the Apache directories, if not you will get this “Forbidden error” on the page.

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