Restart httpd after changes in the httpd.conf

Question

Do I need to restart httpd after changes in the httpd.conf file for changes to take effect?

Gingerly

@svisstack true, but apache and apache-config is not related to programming either. – Gingerly

this should be asked on serverfault.com not stackoverflow.com, on serverfault you will get better results, on stackoverflow is not for peoples who interesting with this things. – Crassulaceous

Answer 1

Yes. HTTPD.conf is read on apache start-up, so for any changes to take affect you need to restart it.

Hoyt

You can do service httpd reload, so apache will not be down. – Curse

@narkoz service does not exist so useing /etc/init.d/httpd status/restart – Gingerly

I did a redirect, but restarting also does not solve the issue...what could be wrong. I have logged in as root. – Gingerly

If your changes are not taking effect after restart, it is possible that your httpd.conf is incorrect. – Hoyt

Jean, /etc/init.d/httpd reload – Curse

Are the certificate changes in ssl.conf also picked up by reload of httpd ? – Maladjusted

@vishnu Yes, it should be. – Hoyt

Answer 2

Yes you need to restart the server by

sudo service httpd restart

You can check errors in your config files by

apachectl -t

Changes may take some time to reflect.

Scission

You can do a graceful restart which does not require "restart the server" @Raghunandan J – Dumuzi

Answer 3

You can have apache re-read its config files without restarting by sudo apachectl graceful (or apache2ctl on debian).

From the Apache docs:

Gracefully restarts the Apache httpd daemon. If the daemon is not running, it is started. This differs from a normal restart in that currently open connections are not aborted. [...] This command automatically checks the configuration files as in configtest before initiating the restart to make sure Apache doesn't die.

Potiche