Runtime Server Configuration Settings

At this point, the Apache server will run, but perhaps you want to change a behavior, such as the default location of your website’s files. This section talks about the basics of configuring the server to work the way you want it to work.

Runtime configurations are stored in just one file—apache2.conf, which is found under the /etc/apache2 directory. This configuration file can be used to control the default behavior of Apache, such as the web server’s base configuration directory (/etc/apache2), the name of the server’s PID file (/var/run/apache2.pid), or its response timeout (300 seconds). Apache reads the data from the configuration file when started (or restarted). You can also cause Apache to reload configuration information with the command /etc/init.d/apache2 reload, which is necessary after making changes to its configuration file. (You learned how to accomplish this in earlier in this chapter, in the “Starting and Stopping Apache” section.)