> [snip] > >> we could change the >> script to do a stop then restart, but we've seen where this method (done >> manually) was not 100% reliable and would sometimes require a couple of >> "stops" before we could really restart apache (never understood why >> this was >> so.) > > > It's most likely that the stop is actually taking longer than you > expect to process. Apachectl just sends the "kill" and doesn't wait > around for everything to exit. Depending on what each of the children > is doing, this can take awhile. So the better approach is not to > "stop" again but, if "start" fails, wait a few seconds and try the > start again.
Better yet, probe for the existance of the httpd.pid file. That's basically the last thing Apache does when shutting down (unlinking it, that is). Issac