If configuring the Apache HTTP Server, edit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf and then either reload, restart, or stop and start the httpd process as outlined in Section 10.4, “Starting and Stopping httpd”.

Before editing httpd.conf, make a copy the original file. Creating a backup makes it easier to recover from mistakes made while editing the configuration file.

If a mistake is made and the Web server does not work correctly, first review recently edited passages in httpd.conf to verify there are no typos.

Next look in the Web server's error log, /var/log/httpd/error_log. The error log may not be easy to interpret, depending on your level of expertise. However, the last entries in the error log should provide useful information.

The following subsections contain a list of short descriptions for many of the directives included in httpd.conf. These descriptions are not exhaustive. For more information, refer to the Apache documentation online at http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/.

For more information about mod_ssl directives, refer to the documentation online at http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_ssl.html.