Frequently Asked Questions
The latest version of this FAQ is always available from the main Apache
web site, at <http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/faq/>.
Since Apache 2.0 is quite new, we don't yet know what the Frequently
Asked Questions will be. While this section fills up, you should also
consult the Apache 1.3
FAQ to see if your question is answered there.
If you are having trouble with your Apache server software, you should
take the following steps:
- Check the errorlog!
- Apache tries to be helpful when it encounters a problem. In many
cases, it will provide some details by writing one or messages to the
server error log. Sometimes this is enough for you to diagnose & fix
the problem yourself (such as file permissions or the like). The default
location of the error log is
/usr/local/apache2/logs/error_log, but see the ErrorLog directive in your config files for the
location on your server.
- Check the FAQ!
- The latest version of the Apache Frequently-Asked Questions list can
always be found at the main Apache web site.
- Check the Apache bug database
- Most problems that get reported to The Apache Group are recorded in
the bug database.
Please check the existing reports, open
and closed, before adding one. If you find that your
issue has already been reported, please don't add a "me, too"
report. If the original report isn't closed yet, we suggest that you
check it periodically. You might also consider contacting the original
submitter, because there may be an email exchange going on about the
issue that isn't getting recorded in the database.
- Ask in a user support forum
Apache has an active community of users who are willing to share
their knowledge. Participating in this community is usually the best and
fastest way to get answers to your questions and problems.
Users
mailing list
USENET newsgroups:
- comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix
[news]
[google]
- comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows
[news]
[google]
- comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi
[news]
[google]
- If all else fails, report the problem in the bug database
If you've gone through those steps above that are appropriate and
have obtained no relief, then please do let the httpd developers
know about the problem by logging a bug
report.
If your problem involves the server crashing and generating a core
dump, please include a backtrace (if possible). As an example,
# cd ServerRoot
# dbx httpd core
(dbx) where
(Substitute the appropriate locations for your ServerRoot
and your httpd and core files. You may have to use
gdb instead of dbx.)
With several million users and fewer than forty volunteer developers,
we cannot provide personal support for Apache. For free support, we
suggest participating in a user forum.
Professional, commercial support for Apache is available from
a number of
companies.
Apache uses the sendfile syscall on platforms
where it is available in order to speed sending of responses.
Unfortunately, on some systems, Apache will detect the presence of
sendfile at compile-time, even when it does not work
properly. This happens most frequently when using network or
other non-standard file-system.
Symptoms of this problem include the above message in the error
log and zero-length responses to non-zero-sized files. The
problem generally occurs only for static files, since dynamic
content usually does not make use of sendfile.
To fix this problem, simply use the EnableSendfile directive to disable
sendfile for all or part of your server. Also see
the EnableMMAP, which can
help with similar problems.
