How to start, stop and restart apache on CentOS/ RHEL?

Apache is a free and open-source cross-platform web server software. It is one of the most popular HTTP servers. Generally, it is used in combination with MySQL, PHP, and other scripting languages and forms a robust platform for the deployment of web applications.

Apache package on CentOS and Red Hat Linux is available with the name httpd. As I already discussed how to set up the apache web server on CentOS.

In this article, we will discuss different methods of how to start, stop and restart the apache server on CentOS or Red Hat Linux.

Prerequisites

To manage apache services on CentOS or RHEL you should have the following.

CentOS/ RHEL running with the apache web server installed on it
A user account with superuser privileges

Start, stop and restart the apache using the systemctl command

Most of the modern distributions today uses systemd as init system. On these systems, we can use the systemctl command to manage services. Now see the given commands that can be used on CentOS / RHEL to manage apache services.

Use the following command to start the apache web server on your system –

sudo systemctl start httpd

You can check the status, if the server is running properly or not by using –

sudo systemctl status httpd

Generally, you need to restart or reload your server after making changes in the configuration file. You can use the following command to restart the apache server on your system –

sudo systemctl restart httpd

You can also use the reload command to refresh the configuration files of the apache server. This command is faster and creates less disruption to the webserver –

sudo systemctl reload httpd

If you want to stop the server then use –

sudo systemctl stop httpd

Start, stop and restart the apache webserver using the apachectl command script

Starting httpd using the apachectl control script sets the environmental variables in /etc/sysconfig/httpd and starts httpd. The environment variable can also be set using init script.

Apache recommends to use control scripts to pass the command to httpd processes. The apachectl commands are given below.

To start apache server use –