5.3

Creating and Using vFabric Web
Server Instances
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VMware vFabric Suite 5.3 33
• httpdctl.ps1: PowerShell script for Windows. See Windows: Start and Stop vFabric Web Server Instances for usage
examples.
Script commands are the same for both. Commands are described in the following table.
Table 6.3. httpdctl Script Commands
Command Description
start Starts the vFabric Web Server instance. If the instance is already
running, the command returns an error.
stop Forcibly stops the vFabric Web Server instance. All currently opened
connections are aborted.
gracefulstop Gracefully stops the vFabric Web Server instance, which means that
the script waits until all currently open connections are closed rather
than aborting them forcibly.
restart Restarts the instance. If the instance was not originally running, the
script starts it. If the instance was not originally running, the script
starts it. The script also runs a configtest before starting the
instance.
graceful Gracefully restarts the instance. If the instance is not running, it is
started. This command differs from a normal restart in that currently
open connections are not aborted. A side effect is that old log files will
not be closed immediately. This means that if you use this command
in a log rotation script, a substantial delay may be necessary to ensure
that the old log files are closed before processing them. This command
runs a configtest before starting the instance.
status Displays basic status information about the instance, such as whether
it is running and its process id (PID) if so.
install Installs the instance as a service on Windows, Unix, and Linux.
After installing the service on Windows, you use the Windows Services
console or the sc command to start, stop, and restart the vFabric Web
Server instance, and configure whether the service starts automatically
when Windows starts, and so on. For more information about the the
sc command, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/
library/bb490995.aspx
On Unix, the instance is installed as a script file in the /etc/init.d
directory with name vFabric-httpd-instance-name. The service
automatically starts and stops when Unix is started or stopped.
uninstall Uninstalls the instance as Windows, Unix, or Linux service. On
Windows, the instance is removed from the Service registry.
On Unix, the command deletes the /etc/init.d/vFabric-
httpd-instance-name script file.
configtest Runs a syntax test against the configuration files, such as conf/
httpd.conf. The script parses the configuration files and either
reports Syntax OK or outputs detailed information about the particular
syntax error.
Serve a Sample HTML File from Your vFabric Web Server Instance
After you install vFabric Web Server and create an instance, you can use it to host your entire Web site. This section does not
describe the entire process; rather, it simply shows how to serve an HTML file from the default document root of your instance.
Prerequisites
• Create and start a vFabric Web Server instance. See Create vFabric Web Server Instances.
• Create or download one or more sample HTML pages that you want to serve from the instance.