Bug#459236: 'apache2ctl graceful' restarts apache, even when syntax is bad in apache config

[Stefan Fritsch <sf@sfritsch.de>]

On Friday 04 January 2008, Stefan Mielke wrote:
> if I have a wrong syntax in for example a vhost config,
> 'apache2ctl graceful' warns about the bad syntax (Syntax error on
> line ..) but then tries to restart apache2 causing a shutdown.

This has been like this forever, but the documentation is 
contradictory. 
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/stopping.html documents the current 
behaviour, while 
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/programs/apachectl.html and the man 
page claim that apache2ctl does a config check. 

I agree that this is a bug (and have fixed it in unstable) but I don't 
think it is severe enough to be fixed in a stable upload. But you can 
use /etc/init.d/apache2 reload instead, which does a config check 
first.

Note that even if the config check succeeds, apache may still die on a 
graceful reload (e.g. if a certificate is missing). See the first URL 
above for more information.