Debian – Where does the httpd.conf reside in GCE Apache

apache-http-serverdebiangoogle-compute-engine

I have a simple, Django application which I would like to push to production on a Google Compute Engine (GCE) server. The GCE server is running Debian-Wheezy. I have installed Apache 2, Django 1.6.2 and mod-wsgi on the server and set up a firewall rule which opens port tcp:80.

I am attempting to follow the instructions at https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/howto/deployment/wsgi/modwsgi/. However, I have been unable to find the httpd.conf file to modify.

Questions:

  1. Where can I find this httpd.conf file to modify?
  2. Once found, do I just edit it as shown at the webpage and then any visits to the GCE instance's external IP address will be directed to my Django application?

Edit 1:

In my root I have the following folders:

bin  boot  build  dev  etc  home  initrd.img  lib  lib64  media  mnt  opt  proc  root  run  sbin  selinux  srv  sys  tmp  usr  var  vmlinuz

Follwing advice from: http://commanigy.com/blog/2011/06/08/finding-apache-configuration-file-httpd-conf-location I have run the following:

$ ps -ef | grep apache

which returns

jason@instance-1:/$ ps -ef | grep apache
root     10492     1  0 13:33 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 10495 10492  0 13:33 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 10496 10492  0 13:33 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 10497 10492  0 13:33 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
jason    11669 11529  0 16:54 pts/1    00:00:00 grep apache

and then 

$ /usr/sbin/apache2 -V

which returns 

Server version: Apache/2.2.22 (Debian)
Server built:   Feb  1 2014 21:26:17
Server's Module Magic Number: 20---edited-just-in-case
Server loaded:  APR 1.4.6, APR-Util 1.4.1
Compiled using: APR 1.4.6, APR-Util 1.4.1
Architecture:   64-bit
Server MPM:     Worker
  threaded:     yes (fixed thread count)
    forked:     yes (variable process count)
Server compiled with....

 -D APACHE_MPM_DIR="server/mpm/worker"
 -D APR_HAS_SENDFILE
 -D APR_HAS_MMAP
 -D APR_HAVE_IPV6 (IPv4-mapped addresses enabled)
 -D APR_USE_SYSVSEM_SERIALIZE
 -D APR_USE_PTHREAD_SERIALIZE
 -D APR_HAS_OTHER_CHILD
 -D AP_HAVE_RELIABLE_PIPED_LOGS
 -D DYNAMIC_MODULE_LIMIT=128
 -D HTTPD_ROOT="/etc/apache2"
 -D SUEXEC_BIN="/usr/lib/apache2/suexec"
 -D DEFAULT_PIDLOG="/var/run/apache2.pid"
 -D DEFAULT_SCOREBOARD="logs/apache_runtime_status"
 -D DEFAULT_ERRORLOG="logs/error_log"
 -D AP_TYPES_CONFIG_FILE="mime.types"
 -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="apache2.conf"

According to that website the file I'm actually looking for is apache2.conf not httpd.conf – though this contradicts the Django documentation…

Edit 2

To answer @ls97 question, at /usr/sbin/apache2 is a symbolic link which points to 

apache2 -> ../lib/apache2/mpm-worker/apache2

If I navigate to this location and run $ ls -al I get

  total 496
  drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   4096 Apr 18 13:27 .
  drwxr-xr-x 7 root root   4096 Apr 18 13:27 ..
  -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 497808 Feb  1 21:27 apache2

And the apache2 item at this location is not a directory.

Best Answer

apache2.conf is usually under /etc/apache2/ and is the apache main configuration file. It loads httpd.conf which is where you should place your configurations (and not in the main file).

update:

So, in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file, you certainly have lines like these 2 somewhere:

# Include all the user configurations:
Include httpd.conf

The last one will include /etc/apache2/httpd.conf file which is probably an empty file (or almost) on a fresh install. If it doesn't exist, you can create a new one and add:

NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen 80

You can add your global configurations and virtualhosts configurations there as stated in the django tutorial. As I know the virtualhost part is not in django tutorial (because it is not django related but apache), here is a starting example from a working django site:

<VirtualHost *:80>  # will listen on port 80 - as defined above

    ServerAdmin your@email.com
    ServerName your.site.com     # will serve requests on this url

    DocumentRoot /path/to/your/djangoproject  # like /home/username/projects/myproject


# complete with the rest of the django tutorial configuration under "Serving Files" 
# to serve static files using the same server as I think you have only 1 server available

# close the virtualhost after django tutorial configurations
</VirtualHost>

You need to install and enable wsgi module on apache of course. Usually it is already there and you only need to enable it with: sudo a2enmod wsgi. Not sure about that but I suppose it's enabled for you by GCE based on your configuration for python/django.

Also beware if you are using apache before 2.4, there is a note in django tutorial to change Require all granted with Allow from all and select permission order.

I think this is the simplest way to do it. Another method I prefer for multiple virtualhosts, is to use a directory called sites-available to store 1 file per vhost and enable them selectively linking to sites-enabled. You can find examples of how to do it in apache documentation but working in httpd.conf is fine too for a small number of sites.

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