I have just started to upgrade some servers to Ubuntu 16.04. It looked good until I rebooted to the server and the Apache2 service didn’t start up properly. I view the logs in systemd. Using the command:
systemctl status apache2.service
● apache2.service – LSB: Apache2 web server
Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/apache2; bad; vendor preset: enabled)
Drop-In: /lib/systemd/system/apache2.service.d
└─apache2-systemd.conf
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2016-04-26 13:29:37 EDT; 7min ago
Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
Process: 1343 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/apache2 start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname apache2[1343]: * The apache2 configtest failed.
Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname apache2[1343]: Output of config test was:
Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname apache2[1343]: AH00526: Syntax error on line 59 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf:
Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname apache2[1343]: Invalid command ‘php_flag’, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration
Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname apache2[1343]: Action ‘configtest’ failed.
Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname apache2[1343]: The Apache error log may have more information.
Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname systemd[1]: apache2.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: Apache2 web server.
Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname systemd[1]: apache2.service: Unit entered failed state.
Apr 26 13:29:37 hostname systemd[1]: apache2.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
I did a Apache2ctl config test like so:
AH00526: Syntax error on line 59 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf:
Invalid command ‘php_flag’, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration
Action ‘configtest’ failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.
The problem is the setting “php_flag engine off” and “php_admin_value engine Off” settings. Which looks like so. This setting stops php files being executed in certain folders (such a image folder etc).
<DirectoryMatch ^.*/somewhere/>
AllowOverride None
php_flag engine off
php_admin_value engine Off
</DirectoryMatch>
I removed both of these and restarted apache again using:
sudo systemctl start apache2.service
Hope this helps someone else.