Ubuntu – Unable to connect to local network after deleting everything in /var/log

Apache2mythtvnetworking

I'm using MythTV and MythWeb has suddenly stopped working. When I try to connect, my web browser reports:

Unable to connect Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 192.168.1.100.

I still have no trouble connecting to the internet, and ifconfig results seem OK:

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1c:c0:79:83:13  
          inet addr:192.168.1.100  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:c0ff:fe79:8313/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:963141 errors:0 dropped:90 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:726145 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:449248447 (449.2 MB)  TX bytes:174625833 (174.6 MB)
          Interrupt:20 Memory:e3400000-e3420000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:6009249 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6009249 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:2149138281 (2.1 GB)  TX bytes:2149138281 (2.1 GB)

I get the same error when I tryhttp://192.168.1.100/ so I think this is probably less a mythweb error and more an…Apache error?

Update: Since it appears it may be port 80 related (thanks Nathan), I checked my /etc/apache2/ports.conf file, which did contain a "Listen 80" line, so I checked and apache's not running (facepalm)!

Trying to start apache with:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start
returns:

AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using ::1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message
(2)No such file or directory: AH02291: Cannot access directory '/var/log/apache2/' for main error log
(2)No such file or directory: AH02291: Cannot access directory '/var/log/apache2/' for error log of vhost defined at /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf:1

Best Answer

As the apache errors indicate, it wasn't starting because there was no /var/log/apache2/ directory due to my deleting everything in my /var/log directory while trying to debug an unrelated problem. I recreated the /var/log/apache2/ directories to get rid of the last two errors, and added 'ServerName localhost' to my /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file per these instructions: to get rid of the first error.

I don't know why the log directory isn't simply recreated if missing, but that was the problem.

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