Simple Fix for Apache on Snow Leopard

After upgrading to Snow Leopard last week several things broke. One of the victims was Apache.

I like to keep my environment as “stock” as possible. Fewer customizations means having to work around fewer things as I make the changes that I absolutely need to make.

Since Snow Leopard comes bundled with updated versions of both Apache and PHP, I decided to use those versions instead of the MacPorts versions which I had to use on Leopard. However, after removing the MacPorts versions and enabling the default versions I still couldn’t get Apache to run properly.

The problem turned out to be what Apple probably considers a “feature”, though I think it’s broken even as such.

The problem is in the apache daemon configuration file: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist

The default version of this file (installed by Snow Leopard) looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Disabled</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>org.apache.httpd</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/usr/sbin/httpd</string>
                <string>-D</string>
                <string>FOREGROUND</string>
        </array>
        <key>OnDemand</key>
        <false/>
        <key>SHAuthorizationRight</key>
        <string>system.preferences</string>
</dict>
</plist>

The reason I’ve been unable to access content which Apache should have been serving was these two lines:

        <key>Disabled</key>
        <true/>

The reason I say that this is still a bug, and should be fixed by Apple is that the Disabled setting remained even after I disabled and then re-enabled the Web Sharing service in my System Preferences. Doing this should have changed that value.

So, in order to get Apache running properly again I had to comment out the Disabled setting, like so.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <!--
        <key>Disabled</key>
        <true/>
  -->
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>org.apache.httpd</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/usr/sbin/httpd</string>
                <string>-D</string>
                <string>FOREGROUND</string>
        </array>
        <key>OnDemand</key>
        <false/>
        <key>SHAuthorizationRight</key>
        <string>system.preferences</string>
</dict>
</plist>

After making this change and restarting my system, everything worked.