‘Restart Apache’ AppleScript

Wednesday, 30 November 2005

Here’s a quick tip for those of you developing web sites on your Mac.

When you make changes to Apache’s configuration file (/etc/httpd/httpd.conf), you need to restart Apache to get the changes to take effect. My most frequent need for this is when I set up new staging servers using virtual hosting, but it’s the case for any change you make to httpd.conf.

Apple’s built-in way to restart Apache is the use the Personal Web Sharing section of the Sharing panel in System Preferences. Just click Stop and then click Start. Easy — but it’s only really convenient if you’ve already got the Sharing prefs panel open.

From the terminal, you can restart Apache using the apachectl graceful command, which requires administrator privileges, which means you’d typically invoke it as sudo apachectl graceful. That’s easy too, but, again, is only convenient if you’ve already got a terminal window open and can remember the exact spelling of ‘apachectl’.

So because I’m really lazy, I made an AppleScript that does this. It’s just one single line:

do shell script "apachectl graceful" with administrator privileges

I saved it as a compiled script named “Restart Apache” in the /Library/Scripts folder in my home folder, which puts it in my system-wide Scripts menu. (You can turn the system-wide Scripts menu on using the AppleScript Utility app in your /Applications/AppleScript folder.)

So it’s as simple as this: when I need to restart Apache, I choose “Restart Apache” from my system-wide Scripts menu, the script prompts me to authenticate with admin credentials, and that’s it.

Update: Shane Becker shows how to add a keyboard shortcut to the ‘Restart Apache’ script menu item.