Solution for the apache 2.0 / 2.2 Syntax error in httpd.conf

If you are working on Debian with directadmin, you can compile your apache in several versions. Apache 2.0 and Apache 2.2 are the most used since Apache 1.3 is end-of-life.

Compiling the default apache 2.0 / 2.2 will give an error while starting:

/usr/local/directadmin/custombuild# /etc/init.d/httpd restart
Stopping httpd:
Starting httpd: [Tue Dec 11 14:40:40 2007] [warn] module php5_module is already loaded, skipping
Syntax error on line 70 of /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:
<IfModule takes one argument, Container for directives based on existance of specified modules

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This is because there is a syntax error in the default template. To fix this once and for allways perform these actions:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/configure/ap2/conf/
pico httpd.conf_2.0

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(vi, nano, or any other editor also okay)
Look now for this code around line 70:

#replace %b with %O for more accurate logging
<IfModule IfModule mod_logio.c>
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O" common
LogFormat "%O" bytes
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\" %I %O" combinedio
</IfModule>

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Replace it with this:

#replace %b with %O for more accurate logging
<IfModule mod_logio.c>
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O" common
LogFormat "%O" bytes
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\" %I %O" combinedio
</IfModule>

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What you have done now is deleting 1 'IfModule' statement. After this you have to re-generate your configs:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/
./build rewrite_confs
/etc/init.d/httpd stop
killall httpd
/etc/init.d/httpd start
Starting httpd:

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/etc/init.d/restart will sometimes make problems for this situation

John confirmed this and changed the default templates!