Apache rewrite mod breaking apache

Question

I am setting up Drupal Open Atrium, and halfway through the configuration receive an error:

Clean Urls must be available and enabled to use OpenAtrium.

https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/configuring-clean-urls/enable-clean-urls tells me to run sudo a2enmod rewrite, which happens:

Enabling module rewrite. To activate the new configuration, you need to run: service apache2 restart 

but when I then run sudo service apache2 restart I get the following error:

Job for apache2.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status apache2.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details. 

systemctl status apache2.service returns:

● apache2.service - LSB: Apache2 web server Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/apache2; bad; vendor preset: enabled) Drop-In: /lib/systemd/system/apache2.service.d └─apache2-systemd.conf Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2017-04-03 18:21:04 UTC; 7s ago Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8) Process: 11268 ExecStop=/etc/init.d/apache2 stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Process: 11345 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/apache2 start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE) Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 apache2[11345]: * Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 apache2[11345]: * The apache2 configtest failed. Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 apache2[11345]: Output of config test was: Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 apache2[11345]: apache2: Syntax error on line 140 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: Syntax error on line 1 of /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/rew Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 apache2[11345]: Action 'configtest' failed. Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 apache2[11345]: The Apache error log may have more information. Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 systemd[1]: apache2.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1 Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: Apache2 web server. Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 systemd[1]: apache2.service: Unit entered failed state. Apr 03 18:21:04 ip-172-31-31-251 systemd[1]: apache2.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'. 

The problem sorts itself out with a a2dismod rewrite, but then I'm back where I started.

My /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/rewrite.load looks like this, if that's the trouble.

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so 

How can I get the rewrite mod to work with apache?

Answer 1

This was finally solved by using sudo apache2ctl graceful and following the file links from the error messages, for example:

apache2: Syntax error on line 140 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: Syntax error on line 1 of /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/rewrite.load: LoadModule takes two arguments, a module name and the name of a shared object file to load it from Action 'graceful' failed. The Apache error log may have more information. 

In the end, I removed the AddModule mod_rewrite.c from the rewrite.load that was suggested by Drupal, and changed the link from modules/mod_rewrite.so to /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_rewrite.so which is where it actually was (found with sudo find / -name mod_rewrite.so)

I then restarted apache, and everything worked!