tail -f findings.out

While experimenting with mod_python, I ended up completely hosing my local Apache installed. I had the configuration files in a bad state, so I thought I would just drop all of /etc/apache2, remove Apache, and re-install it. But once that happened, /etc/apache2 wasn’t remade! When I tried to start or stop Apache, it spat back:

Oh right, thanks… So here’s what I did to erase Apache’s memory of my mistakes:

• Find and drop all Apache packages:

  1 2	sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep apache sudo apt-get remove --purge apache2 apache2-mpm-worker apache2-threaded-dev apache2-utils apache2.2-common libapache2-mod-python libapache2-mod-python-doc libapache2-mod-wsgi

• Re-install Apache:

  1	sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-python libapache2-mod-wsgi libapache2-mod-python-doc

After this, all the configuration files were back, and I had a default Apache install.

While top can show you that yes, it is Apache that is taking up all your server’s resources, what can you do to narrow down the activity to a particular site being served on the box? You could tail the access_log, but on anything but a slow server, that leads more to blindess than enlightenment. And perhaps you want something a little more current than utilities that can chew through Apache log files and give you stats.

In looking for this, I came across Apachetop. This handy little utility parses your log files and gives you all sorts of configurable stats in real time, in a clean CLI human readable interface. This article over at HowToGeek does a great job describing how to install it (in most package handlers), use it, and configure it, so I won’t re-hash it all here. Here’s some example output (updating as soon as activity occurs of course):

Often when troubleshooting or setting up servers, I need to know the installed versions of applications commonly grouped into the “LAMP” stack. I dislike having to remember the slight differences between them when trying to coerce each to divulge their version. So I created a script that does that, and even prints it all in easy-to-read colors!

The code:

The result:

Call it “lamp-version-printer.sh”, and add something like “alias lamp=”~/my/code/lamp-version-printer.sh”. Couldn’t be easier.

Minor caveat: While the script does check each program for existence, I only check the most common place. It could be better expanded to cover less used locations for applications, conventions on more OSes, etc.