Comments on: Starting Apache at boot on Leopard

By: TimRob

TimRob — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:30:38 +0000

Sorry Richard, I should have directed my reply to Matthew and those having problems using the command as written. If you’re getting the ‘Nothing Found To Load” error, try using the -w switch.
Mainly what this does is write a key in to the .plist.

launchctl load -w writes the key

Disabled

(Note, It may actually just remove the key if it exists depending on what version of OS X)

Launchctl unload -w changes the key to:

Disabled

man launchctl for more.

Also make sure you don’t have a typo in the name of the .plist file

Best,

TimRob

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 12:12:01 +0000

TimRob, why would I want to use ‘-w’ which problem does this solve?

By: timrob

timrob — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:43:50 +0000

Richard,

I think you need the -w switch after load in the command.

sudo launchctl load -w \ /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.diymacserver.apache2.plist

This removes the key from the property list.

To turn it off use unload instead of load.

Best,

TimRob

sudo launchctl unload -w \
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.diymacserver.apache2.plist

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:59:21 +0000

@Matthew, please check that the plist file is created correctly and that there are no strange characters in it. Please try to use vi when possible. If not possible send the plist to info at this domain.

By: Matthew Mihok

Matthew Mihok — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:57:12 +0000

I get this when i try to do that command:

sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.diymacserver.apache2.plist
launchctl: propertyList is NULL
launchctl: no plist was returned for: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.diymacserver.apache2.plist
launchctl: no plist was returned for: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.diymacserver.apache2.plist
nothing found to load

Any help??

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:51:01 +0000

@Gee, I think this is specific to your setup. I’ve used this on many machines and I’ve never encountered your problem. There might be something else interfering, I think checking your logfiles on why apache is failing to start might give ou some insight in the why.

By: Gee

Gee — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:43:33 +0000

Hi Richard,

Works fine from the command line. Here’s what’s happening:

- launchd does start the apache process on boot, its in the launchd list. However, httpd is not running.

- If I launchctl unload, and reload the plist, it works.httpd is now running.

- That leads me to believe there’s some dependency that’s not loaded yet during boot when launchd loads the apache plist. I tested this theory by adding a 10 second sleep to the top of apachectl. Once I did that, httpd did start on boot when launchd asked it to.

-GB

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:34:36 +0000

@Gee, it will run apache, this is working on my machines. If it doesn’t there is something wrong with your Apache or your config. Try running it from the command line.

By: Gee

Gee — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:28:01 +0000

At least in the current version of Leopard (10.5.8 at time of this posting), this isn’t working. It seems to be launching BEFORE OS X has finished starting up all its services. I added a “/bin/sleep 20″ to apachectl and that worked.

I’m sure there’s a better way to do that though then adding a 20 second sleep to apachectl. Thoughts?

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:28:53 +0000

The logfile in vhost are relative to the logdirectory configured in httpd.conf. I think there is a problem in that configuration.