Apache problem when starts

Rocky Linux Help & Support
1

Hello,

I am installing the Apache web server on Rocky Linux 10. When I check the status of the httpd, the result is:

● httpd.service - The Apache HTTP Server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service; disabled; preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Mon 2025-07-07 12:44:16 CEST; 5s ago
Invocation: 4bdafd352517432182f80268013eee79
Docs: man:httpd.service(8)
Main PID: 1326 (httpd)
Status: “Started, listening on: port 80”
Tasks: 177 (limit: 22972)
Memory: 14.1M (peak: 14.2M)
CPU: 160ms
CGroup: /system.slice/httpd.service
├─1326 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─1361 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─1362 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
├─1363 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
└─1364 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND

Jul 07 12:43:16 rl10.srv.lan systemd[1]: Starting httpd.service - The Apache HTTP Server…
Jul 07 12:43:16 rl10.srv.lan (httpd)[1326]: httpd.service: Referenced but unset environment variable evaluates to an empty string: OPTIONS
Jul 07 12:44:16 rl10.srv.lan systemd[1]: Started httpd.service - The Apache HTTP Server.
Jul 07 12:44:16 rl10.srv.lan httpd[1326]: Server configured, listening on: port 80

I found a way of dealing with the problem " httpd.service: Referenced but unset environment variable evaluates to an empty string: OPTIONS".

Is it possible to solve it in order not to face it again?

2

Yes, you need to check your Apache configuration and fix it. Then it won’t appear again. Most likely something has been incorrectly configured under /etc/httpd.

3

Hello,

As I told you before, I fixed it, and below are the steps
1
vim /etc/systemd/system/httpd.service.d/override.conf

I add:

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND

Save and exit the editor

Reload systemd and restart Apache:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart httpd

I did a similar thing for MariaDB.

The question is, why do I need to make adjustments? That is not happening in previous versions, and I think it should be like that.

4

On a clean installation, this problem doesn’t exist. Perhaps you copied apache config from an older machine or different machine? That would potentially explain why it doesn’t work.

On mine, I just did:

dnf install -y httpd
systemctl enable --now httpd

and Apache works. The same for mariadb as well.

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