Index: httpd-trunk/support/apachectl.in
===================================================================
--- httpd-trunk/support/apachectl.in    (revision 691326)
+++ httpd-trunk/support/apachectl.in    (working copy)
@@ -78,6 +78,18 @@

 case $ACMD in
 start|stop|restart|graceful|graceful-stop)
+    case $ACMD in
+    start|graceful|restart)
+        CONFIGTEST=`$HTTPD -t 2>&1`
+        ERROR=$?
+        if [ $ERROR -ne 0 ]; then
+            echo "$0 $ARGV: configuration broken, ignoring (re)start:"
+            echo $CONFIGTEST
+            exit $ERROR
+        fi
+        ;;
+    esac
+
     $HTTPD -k $ARGV
     ERROR=$?
     ;;