These tools are simple Cygwin shell scripts used to install, uninstall, start, stop and monitor the Apache WebServer as a service on CygWin - useful for TWikiOnCygwin where you are running Apache for Cygwin (CygwinApache) (not Apache for Win32 (WindowsApache).

The Cygwin cygrunsrv tool doesn't completely work when starting/stopping Apache as a service, for reasons that aren't clear but may be because Apache puts itself in the background (which is not expected of a service). (UPDATE: see below for a fix.)

Sometimes Apache under Cygwin won't start as a service after a system reboot - check /var/log/apache.log for any errors relating to the service not starting, as sometimes such messages are spurious (or just do apachectl start to test-run it as a normal process). If one or more process IDs are listed by srv-apache-start, Apache has started OK.

The scripts require pskill.exe from the Sysinternals pstools package (freeware) - this is a tool that lets you kill an Apache process even though it was started as part of an NT/Win2000 service.

The scripts should be self-explanatory, let me know if you have comments.

You should install the scripts and pskill in /usr/local/bin, to keep them out of the way of Cygwin upgrades.

-- RichardDonkin - 29 Mar 2002

I got Cygwin Apache working as a service on Windows XP Home Edition (SP2) as follows:

• Edit /etc/apache/httpd.conf to include User Fred, where Fred is a user with local Administrator rights ('computer administrator' in XP Home Edition).
• Run the following command to install Apache as a service - the -F is the option to keep Apache running, supersedes the obsolete -k option that you may find mentioned elsewhere

          cygrunsrv -I "Apache-Cygwin" -p /usr/sbin/httpd.exe -t auto -a '-F'

• Start the service - you can use the normal Windows Services folder under Control Panel, or net start Apache-Cygwin, or Cygwin's cygrunsrv -S Apache-Cygwin

The service should start automatically on boot. You might need to redo the installation of the service to add service dependencies to the cygrunsrv -I line - e.g. --dep 'Network Connections' might help on XP. However, I have not tested this.

Scripts attached here have not yet been updated.

-- RichardDonkin - 08 May 2005