As we all know, Apache is a free and open source cross-platform web server that is used to serve both static and dynamic web pages. on the web. In this article, we’ll focus on how you can start and restart Apache web server on Linux systems using the apache2 command.
On Ubuntu/Debian Linux
Let’s see how we can start, stop and restart apache2 web server in Ubuntu and Debian versions
Apache2 Restart/Start/Stop/
For Ubuntu and Debian Systemd users – Ubuntu 18.04,16.04 and Debian 9.x later use below commands.
Start Apache2 by running
# systemctl start apache2
Stop Apache2 by running
# systemctl stop apache2
Restart Apache2 by running
# systemctl restart apache2
To check Apache2 status on the terminal run
# systemctl status apache2
Sample Output
● apache2.service – LSB: Apache2 web server
Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/apache2; bad; vendor preset: enabled)
Drop-In: /lib/systemd/system/apache2.service.d
└─apache2-systemd.conf
Active: active (running) since Tue 2018-09-11 12:49:03 UTC; 26s ago
Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
├─28788 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
├─28791 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
└─28792 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
To verify whether the web server is indeed running, open your browser and enter your server’s IP address
http://server-ip-address/
You should be able to view Apache’s default page as shown below
For older versions of Ubuntu -14.10 and older and Debian older
Start Apache2 service by running
# sudo service apache2 start
or
# /etc/init.d/apache2 start
or
# sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start
Stop Apache2 service by running
# sudo service apache2 stop
or
# /etc/init.d/ apache2 stop
Restart Apache2 service by running
# sudo service apache2 restart
or
# /etc/init.d/ apache2 restart
or
# sudo /etc/init.d/ apache2 restart
Sample Output
[ ok ] Restarting apache2 (via systemctl): apache2.service.
Check Apache2 status run
# sudo service apache2 status
or
# /etc/init.d/ apache2 status
or
# sudo /etc/init.d/ apache2 status
Sample Output
● apache2.service – LSB: Apache2 web server
Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/apache2; bad; vendor preset: enabled)
Drop-In: /lib/systemd/system/apache2.service.d
└─apache2-systemd.conf
Active: active (running) since Tue 2018-09-11 12:49:03 UTC; 26s ago
Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
├─28788 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
├─28791 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
└─28792 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
On RHEL/CentOS
Apache2 Restart/Start/Stop
For newer versions of RHEL / CentOS (Versions 7.x and later)
Start Apache2 by running
# systemctl start httpd
or
# systemctl start httpd.service
Stop Apache2 by running
# systemctl stop httpd
or
# systemctl stop httpd.service
Restart Apache2 by running
# systemctl restart httpd
or
# systemctl restart httpd.service
To verify/check the status of Apache2
# systemctl status httpd
Sample Output
● httpd.service – The Apache HTTP Server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service; disabled; vendor prese t: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2018-09-11 17:33:28 UTC; 6min ago
Docs: man:httpd(8)
man:apachectl(8)
Main PID: 1450 (httpd)
Status: “Total requests: 0; Current requests/sec: 0; Current traffic: 0 B/s ec”
CGroup: /system.slice/httpd.service
├─1450 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─1451 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─1452 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─1453 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─1454 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
└─1455 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
Sep 11 17:33:28 ip-172-31-16-67.us-east-2.compute.internal systemd[1]: Starti…
Sep 11 17:33:28 ip-172-31-16-67.us-east-2.compute.internal systemd[1]: Starte…
Hint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.
For older versions (CentOS/RHEL (Red Hat) Linux version 4.x/5.x/6.x )
Start Apache2 by running
# service httpd start
Stop Apache2 by running
# service httpd stop
Restart Apache2 by running
# service httpd restart
To check the status of Apache web server
# service httpd status
sample output
● httpd.service – The Apache HTTP Server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2018-09-11 19:46:30 UTC; 1 weeks 1 days ago
Docs: man:httpd(8)
man:apachectl(8)
Process: 9118 ExecStop=/bin/kill -WINCH $ (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Process: 22055 ExecReload=/usr/sbin/httpd $OPTIONS -k graceful (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 9122 (httpd)
Status: “Total requests: 0; Current requests/sec: 0; Current traffic: 0 B/sec”
CGroup: /system.slice/httpd.service
├─ 9122 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─22058 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─22059 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─22060 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─22061 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─22062 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─22149 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
└─27556 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
Just like in Debian systems, you can verify that the web server is running by opening your browser and typing your server’s IP address
http://server-ip-address/
On Fedora
Apache2 Restart/Start/Stop
For Fedora Systems (22 and later)
Start Apache2 by running
# systemctl start httpd
or
# apachectl start
Stop Apache2 by running
# systemctl stop httpd
or
# apachectl -k stop
To restart Apache2 run
apachectl -k restart
To check Apache2 status
systemctl status httpd
To confirm that the server is up and running on a web browser, type the server’s IP
http://server-ip-address/
In this article, we focussed on How you can start, stop and restart Apache2 web server on Linux Systems such as Ubuntu/Debian and Redhat systems. We hope that this tutorial has been helpful.