Where is httpd.conf - The Apache Configuration File

Are you tired of searching for the Apache Configuration File, httpd.conf?

To find the location of httpd.conf run the following shell command:

httpd -V

Note the -V option is capitalized. Which will give a response similar to:

Server version: Apache/2.2.21 (Unix)
Server built:   Nov 10 2011 19:22:21
Cpanel::Easy::Apache v3.7.1 rev9999
Server's Module Magic Number: 20051115:30
Server loaded:  APR 1.4.5, APR-Util 1.3.12
Compiled using: APR 1.4.5, APR-Util 1.3.12
Architecture:   32-bit
Server MPM:     Event
  threaded:     yes (fixed thread count)
    forked:     yes (variable process count)
Server compiled with....
 -D APACHE_MPM_DIR="server/mpm/experimental/event"
 -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 SINGLE_LISTEN_UNSERIALIZED_ACCEPT
 -D APR_HAS_OTHER_CHILD
 -D AP_HAVE_RELIABLE_PIPED_LOGS
 -D DYNAMIC_MODULE_LIMIT=128
 -D HTTPD_ROOT="/usr/local/apache"
 -D SUEXEC_BIN="/usr/local/apache/bin/suexec"
 -D DEFAULT_SCOREBOARD="logs/apache_runtime_status"
 -D DEFAULT_ERRORLOG="logs/error_log"
 -D AP_TYPES_CONFIG_FILE="conf/mime.types"
 -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="conf/httpd.conf"

The path to httpd.conf can be seen as the HTTPD_ROOT/SERVER_CONFIG_FILE which is /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf in this example.

I've always been using find / -name 'httpd.conf" but this is much faster.

Once you've found httpd.conf you probably want to find the other files being included in the configuration. To do this you can search the httpd.conf file for the "Include" directives.

grep -E "^Include" /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf 

The -E option gives extended regular expression so you can use "^Include" where the "^" character matches the beginning of the line. So only lines beginning with "Include" are returned.

You could follow each included file and recursively follow every included file to get all the included files but this is a good start. Something I also find myself needing is to look at all the configuration files in the apache configuration directory. ie:

find /usr/local/apache/conf -name '*.conf'

That returns every file ending in .conf.

Hope that helps.