Apache – making a group for it
See also Apache topics.By default, Apache runs as user nobody in group nobody. That’s not good. So I’m creating a new user and a new group. The group can be added by modifying /etc/group. For more information on this file, try man group.
I created a new user by running adduser. This user doesn’t need a shell nor does it need a home directory.
To restart httpd, I did a kill -1. It didn’t restart. The log (/var/log/httpd-error.log) shows it attempted to restart. So I restart httpd manually by going to /usr/local/sbin and typing ./httpd.
It complained about a virtual host in /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf. So I comment out that reference and try to restart httpd.. Now it runs. I notice one instance as root and five as the user I just created. According to my sources, that is normal.
I confess that when I set up this new user, I did give it a shell. And a home directory. I’ll have to remove that eventually.