i installed apache2 and when i transfered the httpd.conf to the new structure with sites-available ..., i got a severe problem: apache2 doesen't start without telling why. i found out after a long search, that the path to the ErrorLog for some old virtualhosts didnt exist on the mashine. this was the definition i tried to add at first: <VirtualHost *> ServerAdmin webmaster@spacetrace.org DocumentRoot /web/spacetrace/pics ServerName spacetrace.hirnbrand.de ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/space_errors.log CustomLog /var/log/httpd/space_access.log common </VirtualHost> and the right configuration later was: <VirtualHost *> ServerAdmin webmaster@spacetrace.org DocumentRoot /web/spacetrace/pics ServerName spacetrace.hirnbrand.de ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/space_errors.log CustomLog /var/log/apache2/space_access.log common </VirtualHost> another solution would have been to enter a symlink ln -s /var/log/apache2 /var/log/httpd but i think there should be a warning, when you try to start apache and it cannot start like "directory doesent exist: /var/log/httpd" or so
Sorry but I cannot reproduce this error. If httpd fails to open the error log of the main server it writes an error message to stderr. If it can open the main server error log and fails to open an error log of a virtual host it writes this to the error log of the main server.