[HCoop-Discuss] [HCoop-Misc] is apache down?

[Adam Chlipala]

docelic wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 08:22:11AM -0400, Adam Chlipala wrote:
>   
>> Someone created a Domtool test user "testuser" that somehow doesn't
>> exist in a strong enough sense to satisfy Apache, so Apache is rejecting 
>> configuration that refers to it.  (Apparently the person running this 
>> user didn't try creating a vhost until now, or testuser just became 
>> invalid, or something.)
>>     
>
> I've deleted that user recently through direct means and not using
> destroy-user, thinking that it was a Kerberos/AFS-only entity.
>
> Sorry for the trouble. By the way, Adam, is 'apachect configtest' ran
> before domtool reloads/restarts apache?
>
> If this was a startup-time error, it should have caught it. If it
> crashed due to non-existing user in runtime, then maybe we should 
> patch the code to handle that gracefully.
>   

No, Domtool doesn't run 'apachectl configtest' now.  It's not as simple 
as it sounds to integrate that.  In normal operation, Domtool asks 
Apache to reload configuration by running "/etc/init.d/apache2 reload", 
which _does_ refuse to change configuration when the new config doesn't 
work, I think.  It's only in unusual situations where Apache needs to be 
flat-out restarted that config errors can take Apache down.  We probably 
went so long without noticing this problem because of that.

All in all, I think automatic monitoring of uptime of Apache and all our 
other daemons, with e-mail to admins when something goes wrong, is a 
better idea.