[SlugBug] Apache Restart Panic - any advice?

[James Wallbank]

Hello All,

I just had a major panic when restarting Access Space's web server (Red 
Hat 3.4.4-2).

First I checked the status...

[root at www ~]# service httpd status
httpd (pid 2703 18127 17741 16922 16921 22467 22466 22465 22464 22463 22 
        462 22461 22460 24979 429 424 15921 15914 13897 13865 6783 6780 
30390 28        947 3018 3017 3016 3015 3014 3013 3012 3011 18321) is 
running...

Fine. I installed php-gd, then I restarted the service...

[root at www ~]# service httpd restart

Stopping httpd:  [  OK  ]
Starting httpd: (98)Address already in use: make_sock: could not bind to 
         address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
Unable to open logs
[FAILED]

Oh dear. I checked the status again, which didn't seem to be entirely bad...

[root at www ~]# service httpd status

httpd (pid 424 15921 3013) is running...

However I checked the website, and found... Argh! The site simply wasn't 
available! PANIC! In desparation I tried to replicate the issue...

[root at www ~]# service httpd restart

Stopping httpd:  [  OK  ]
Starting httpd:  [  OK  ]

Oh! It looks like it's better now. I checked the website and it's up 
again. Breathe... ahhhh... and relax.

But if the server suffers a power-outage, will apache restart smoothly? 
(I'd rather guess than test right now.) Obviously, I don't want to have 
to double-restart httpd manually to iron out this glitch.

What happened? Can anyone give me advice, insights or reassurance?

Nervous!

James
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