HTTPD(8) OpenBSD System Manager's Manual HTTPD(8)
NAME
httpd - Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol Server
SYNOPSIS
httpd [-FhlLStTuvVX] [-d serverroot] [-f config] [-c directive] [-C
directive] [-D parameter] [-R libexecdir]
DESCRIPTION
httpd is the Apache HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server program. It
is designed to be run as a standalone daemon process. When used like this
it will create a pool of child processes to handle requests. To stop it,
send a TERM signal to the initial (parent) process. The PID of this pro-
cess is written to a file as given in the configuration file. Alterna-
tively httpd may be invoked by the Internet daemon inetd(8) each time a
connection to the HTTP service is made.
Normally this service can be enabled for startup on OpenBSD by editing
/etc/rc.conf. The -u option is of particular importance.
This manual page only lists the command line arguments. For details of
the directives necessary to configure httpd see the Apache manual, which
is part of the Apache distribution or can be found at
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/, or in /var/www/htdocs/manual. Paths in
this manual page reflect those compiled into httpd by default with OpenB-
SD.
OPTIONS
-u By default httpd will chroot(2) to the serverroot path. The -u
option disables this behaviour, and returns httpd to the expanded
"unsecure" behaviour.
As a result of the default secure behaviour, httpd cannot access
any objects outside ServerRoot -- this security measure is taken
in case httpd is compromised. This is not without drawbacks,
though:
CGI programs may fail due to the limited environment available
inside this chroot space. UserDir, of course, cannot access
files outside the directory space. Other modules will also have
issues. DocumentRoot directories or any other files needed must
be inside ServerRoot. For this to work, pathnames inside the
config file do not need adjustment relative to ServerRoot. For
this option to remain secure, it is important that no files or
directories writable by user www or group www are created inside
the ServerRoot.
-R libexecdir
This option is only available if httpd was built with the
SHARED_CORE rule enabled which forces the httpd core code to be
placed into a dynamic shared object (DSO) file. This file is
searched in a hardcoded path under ServerRoot per default. Use
this option to override.
-d serverroot
Set the initial value for the ServerRoot directive to serverroot.
This can be overridden by the ServerRoot command in the configu-
ration file. The default is /var/www.
-f config
Execute the commands in the file config on startup. If config
does not begin with a /, then it is taken to be a path relative
to the ServerRoot. The default is conf/httpd.conf.
-C directive
Process the configuration directive before reading config files.
-c directive
Process the configuration directive after reading config files.
-D parameter
Sets a configuration parameter which can be used with <IfDe-
fine>...</IfDefine> sections in the configuration files to condi-
tionally skip or process commands.
-F Run the main process in foreground. For process supervisors.
-h Output a short summary of available command line options.
-l Output a list of modules compiled into the server.
-L Output a list of directives together with expected arguments and
places where the directive is valid.
-S Show the settings as parsed from the config file (currently only
shows the virtualhost settings).
-t Run syntax tests for configuration files only, including Documen-
tRoot checks. The program immediately exits after this syntax
parsing with either a return code of 0 (Syntax OK) or return code
not equal to 0 (Syntax Error).
-T Run syntax tests for configuration files only, without Document-
Root checks. The program immediately exits after this syntax
parsing with either a return code of 0 (Syntax OK) or return code
not equal to 0 (Syntax Error).
-X Run in single-process mode, for internal debugging purposes only;
the daemon does not detach from the terminal or fork any chil-
dren. Do NOT use this mode to provide ordinary web service.
-v Print the version of httpd, and then exit.
-V Print the version and build parameters of httpd, and then exit.
The documents served by httpd should not be owned by the user which httpd
is running as (usually user www and group www). They must, however, be
readable by this user.
FILES
/var/www/conf/httpd.conf
/var/www/conf/mime.types
/var/www/conf/magic
/var/www/logs/error_log
/var/www/logs/access_log
/var/www/logs/httpd.pid
/var/www/logs/etag-state
/var/www/logs/ssl_engine_log
/var/www/logs/ssl_request_log
/var/www/logs/ssl_scache.db
/etc/rc.conf
SEE ALSO
chroot(2), inetd(8), rc(8)
OpenBSD 3.3 September 18, 2002 2