What is the apache2ctl "-k" flag?

I've been searching for an hour and have found a hundred examples that use it, but no explanation of what it does. I did check man apache2ctl; it doesn't explain the k flag either (elthough it does use it in examples).

apache-http-server

felwithe

Posted 2014-07-06T16:14:32.240

Reputation: 383

Answers

Yeah, it's a little buried in the description:

When acting in pass-through mode, apachectl can take all the arguments available for the httpd binary.
apachectl [ httpd-argument ]

So let's look at http's documentation then:

-k start|restart|graceful|stop|graceful-stop
Signals httpd to start, restart, or stop.

So if you use -k <option>, you'll simply pass on to httpd, which needs this argument.

If you don't use the -k, apache2ctl will instead look for commands that it will handle itself, which are again the same as httpd would take.

Looking at the source code exhibits this behavior, where a case statement checks whether the first argument is one of the recognized internal commands, and finally (as a fallback), everything's passed onto httpd.

case $ARGV in
start)
  HTTPD ${APACHE_ARGUMENTS} -k $ARGV # <= note the -k here
  # ...
stop|graceful-stop)
  # ...
# ...
*)
    $HTTPD ${APACHE_ARGUMENTS} $ARGV
    ERROR=$?
esac

slhck

Posted 2014-07-06T16:14:32.240

Reputation: 182 472

I'm new to this. Could you explain to me in plain English what ommitting the k flag will actually do? On my Ubuntu server it seems to make no difference if I use the k flag or not, it always restarts successfully as far as I can tell. – BadHorsie – 2015-11-24T11:29:51.247

What you're seeing is normal. Like I said, if you do not use -k, then apachectl will handle the commands itself, but it does the same as httpd. If you use -k, the command is passed on to httpd as-is. – slhck – 2015-11-24T15:08:20.547

I still don't really know what that means in terms of functionality, to be honest, but are you saying then that it doesn't matter if you use the -k flag or not, it will do the same thing in a roundabout way? – BadHorsie – 2015-11-24T16:12:26.187

1That's what I'm saying, yeah. It's for historical reasons that both work. – slhck – 2015-11-24T21:42:40.897

Edit to add: Sorry, slhck types faster than me :D

'apache2ctl' is actually just a front-end for the 'httpd' executable and runs in two modes depending on if you're wanting it to be SysV init scriptable or if you're wanting to pass-through options to the httpd executable. The -k actually gets passed through to httpd.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/programs/apachectl.html

When acting in pass-through mode, apachectl can take all the arguments available for the httpd binary.

apachectl [ httpd-argument ]

So from the httpd man page, http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/programs/httpd.html

-k start|restart|graceful|stop|graceful-stop Signals httpd to start, restart, or stop.

Dawn Benton

Posted 2014-07-06T16:14:32.240

Reputation: 986