Apache failed to start LSB: Apache2 web server

Question

When I start apache then it gives me below error -

  Job for apache2.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status apache2.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

I executed below command -

 systemctl status apache2.service

I got below error

  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: failed (Result: exit-code) since Wed 2017-05-31 17:01:40 IST; 1min 34s ago
  Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
  Process: 11884 ExecStop=/etc/init.d/apache2 stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 3171 ExecReload=/etc/init.d/apache2 reload (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 12696 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/apache2 start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

 May 31 17:01:40 itadmin systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Apache2 web server...
 May 31 17:01:40 itadmin apache2[12696]:  * Starting Apache httpd web server apache2
 May 31 17:01:40 itadmin apache2[12696]: mktemp: failed to create file via template ‘/tmp/tmp.XXXXXXXXXX’: Read-only file system
May 31 17:01:40 itadmin apache2[12696]: /etc/init.d/apache2: 72: /etc/init.d/apache2: cannot create : Directory nonexistent
 May 31 17:01:40 itadmin apache2[12696]:  *
 May 31 17:01:40 itadmin apache2[12696]:  * The apache2 configtest failed.
 May 31 17:01:40 itadmin systemd[1]: apache2.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
 May 31 17:01:40 itadmin systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: Apache2 web server.
May 31 17:01:40 itadmin systemd[1]: apache2.service: Unit entered failed state.
May 31 17:01:40 itadmin systemd[1]: apache2.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

I am not understanding anything. Please anyone can help me?

Answer 1

I also encountered the same error (while working with Saltstack) and managed to solve it. There are four ways.

1. For some reason your /etc/apache2/envvars is missing:
   To solve this, you can create the file manually and add the default envvars content below

   sudo vim /etc/apache2/envvars
   

   # envvars - default environment variables for apache2ctl
   
   # this won't be correct after changing uid
   unset HOME
   
   # for supporting multiple apache2 instances
   if [ "${APACHE_CONFDIR##/etc/apache2-}" != "${APACHE_CONFDIR}" ] ; then
       SUFFIX="-${APACHE_CONFDIR##/etc/apache2-}"
   else
      SUFFIX=
   fi
   
   # Since there is no sane way to get the parsed apache2 config in scripts, some
   # settings are defined via environment variables and then used in apache2ctl,
   # /etc/init.d/apache2, /etc/logrotate.d/apache2, etc.
   export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data
   export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data
   # temporary state file location. This might be changed to /run in Wheezy+1
   export APACHE_PID_FILE=/var/run/apache2/apache2$SUFFIX.pid
   export APACHE_RUN_DIR=/var/run/apache2$SUFFIX
   export APACHE_LOCK_DIR=/var/lock/apache2$SUFFIX
   # Only /var/log/apache2 is handled by /etc/logrotate.d/apache2.
   export APACHE_LOG_DIR=/var/log/apache2$SUFFIX
   
   ## The locale used by some modules like mod_dav
   export LANG=C
   ## Uncomment the following line to use the system default locale instead:
   #. /etc/default/locale
   
   export LANG
   
   ## The command to get the status for 'apache2ctl status'.
   ## Some packages providing 'www-browser' need '--dump' instead of '-dump'.
   #export APACHE_LYNX='www-browser -dump'
   
   ## If you need a higher file descriptor limit, uncomment and adjust the
   ## following line (default is 8192):
   #APACHE_ULIMIT_MAX_FILES='ulimit -n 65536'
   
   ## If you would like to pass arguments to the web server, add them below
   ## to the APACHE_ARGUMENTS environment.
   #export APACHE_ARGUMENTS=''
   
   ## Enable the debug mode for maintainer scripts.
   ## This will produce a verbose output on package installations of web server modules and web application
   ## installations which interact with Apache
   #export APACHE2_MAINTSCRIPT_DEBUG=1
   

   Then restart apache service as usual.

   sudo service apache2 restart
   

2. If your envvars file is ok then it may be a case of missing packages. Reinstall the missing packages using below command, then restart the Apache service.

   sudo apt-get -o DPkg::Options::="--force-confmiss" --reinstall install apache2
   sudo service apache2 restart 
   

3. Alternatively you can uninstall Apache and all its config files then reinstall it.

   sudo apt-get purge apache2
   sudo apt-get install apache2
   

4. And finally if all the options above don't work, you can try installing package libapache2-mod-php7.0 or disable the PHP7 module by running

   sudo a2dismod php7.0