Ubuntu – Failed to start The Apache HTTP Server

There are two errors:

1. For some reason your /etc/apache2/envvars is missing:

• from journalctl -xe:

  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: /etc/init.d/apache2: 1: /etc/apache2/envvars: envvars: not found
  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: /etc/init.d/apache2: 49: /etc/apache2/envvars: envvars: not found
  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: /etc/init.d/apache2: 1: /etc/apache2/envvars: envvars: not found
  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: /etc/init.d/apache2: 49: /etc/apache2/envvars: envvars: not found
  ...        
  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: /usr/sbin/apache2ctl: 1: /etc/apache2/envvars: envvars: not found
  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: /usr/sbin/apache2ctl: 49: /etc/apache2/envvars: envvars: not found
  

• from systemctl status apache2.service:

  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: /usr/sbin/apache2ctl: 1: /etc/apache2/envvars: envvars: not found
  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: /usr/sbin/apache2ctl: 49: /etc/apache2/envvars: envvars: not found
  

In my system this file has next permissions:

$ ls -l /etc/apache2/envvars

-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1782 мар 19  2016 envvars

And its content ($ cat /etc/apache2/envvars) is:

# envvars - default environment variables for apache2ctl

# this won't be correct after changing uid
unset HOME

# for supporting multiple apache2 instances
if [ "${APACHE_CONFDIR##/etc/apache2-}" != "${APACHE_CONFDIR}" ] ; then
        SUFFIX="-${APACHE_CONFDIR##/etc/apache2-}"
else
        SUFFIX=
fi

# Since there is no sane way to get the parsed apache2 config in scripts, some
# settings are defined via environment variables and then used in apache2ctl,
# /etc/init.d/apache2, /etc/logrotate.d/apache2, etc.
export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data
export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data
# temporary state file location. This might be changed to /run in Wheezy+1
export APACHE_PID_FILE=/var/run/apache2/apache2$SUFFIX.pid
export APACHE_RUN_DIR=/var/run/apache2$SUFFIX
export APACHE_LOCK_DIR=/var/lock/apache2$SUFFIX
# Only /var/log/apache2 is handled by /etc/logrotate.d/apache2.
export APACHE_LOG_DIR=/var/log/apache2$SUFFIX

## The locale used by some modules like mod_dav
export LANG=C
## Uncomment the following line to use the system default locale instead:
#. /etc/default/locale

export LANG

## The command to get the status for 'apache2ctl status'.
## Some packages providing 'www-browser' need '--dump' instead of '-dump'.
#export APACHE_LYNX='www-browser -dump'

## If you need a higher file descriptor limit, uncomment and adjust the
## following line (default is 8192):
#APACHE_ULIMIT_MAX_FILES='ulimit -n 65536'

## If you would like to pass arguments to the web server, add them below
## to the APACHE_ARGUMENTS environment.
#export APACHE_ARGUMENTS=''

## Enable the debug mode for maintainer scripts.
## This will produce a verbose output on package installations of web server mod                                               ules and web application
## installations which interact with Apache
#export APACHE2_MAINTSCRIPT_DEBUG=1

You can create it manually: sudo nano /etc/apache2/envvars, paste above content inside, save ctrl+o and exit ctrl+x.

2. In your system, the folder /etc/apache2/logs also missing:

• from journalctl -xe:

  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: (2)No such file or directory: AH02291: Cannot access directory '/etc/apache2/logs/' for main error log
  

• from systemctl status apache2.service:

  Jan 11 02:30:46 aleksandr-VirtualBox apache2[8177]: (2)No such file or directory: AH02291: Cannot access directory '/etc/apache2/logs/' for main error log
  

This is not the default log folder, it is defined in your custom configuration, and must be created:

$ sudo mkdir /etc/apache2/logs

Maybe a bit late, but I had the same issue, but then with ip6tables that gave an error :

$ sudo ifup ens160
run-parts: failed to exec /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/ip6tables: Exec format error
run-parts: /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/ip6tables exited with return code 1
Failed to bring up ens160.

My /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/ip6tables looked like this:

ip6tables-restore < /etc/ip6tables.conf

I solved the issue by adding a shebang on top of the script to make it look like this:

#!/bin/sh
ip6tables-restore < /etc/ip6tables.conf

Now my interface is willing to come up. I hope this solution might help you (and others that stumble across this post).