Tag Archives: apache

Apache2: Read-only file system after ubuntu upgrade

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I just upgraded ubuntu on one of my Lightsail instances and ran into a problem with apache.

The upgrade was going from Ubuntu 25.10 to 26.04.

After the upgrade, every time I tried to start apache, I kept getting this error:

(30)Read-only file system: AH00091: apache2: could not open error log file /home/apache2/web_server_dir/error_log.
AH00015: Unable to open log

Searching google returned results about permission errors, a corrupt file system, or SELinux issues.

I determined that there were no permissions issues with the log directory (www-data had read/write access to the logs directory) & the file system was fine. I’m not super familiar with SELinux, but I really didn’t think that was the cause.

After digging for a while, I was able to determine the issue.

Turns out, it was systemd preventing writing the apache server from writing to the logs directory.

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Http/2, Apache, & Lightsail

This post only covers the technical details of how to implement http/2 on an Apache web server running in Amazon Linux on Lightsail. It does not go into the details of what http/2 is or why use it. For that information, I suggest https://http2.github.io.

First you have to switch the Multi-Processing Modules (MPMs) from pre-fork (the default) to another one. I chose the event mpm for no particular reason.

To do this, edit /etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/00-mpm.conf and make the following changes …

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mailbait redux

For anyone who runs a mailing list and has gotten pummeled recently with a rash of subscription attempts, they may be coming from mailbait.info.

A while ago I blogged on how to block mailbait, but it appears they have changed their host.

Their new host is ‘themailbait.bitbucket.org’.

I suggest you update your web server configuration to block any referrer that references the word ‘mailbait’ in the URL.

Here’s my new httpd.conf entry to block mailbait…

SetEnvIf Referer mailbait mailbait
Deny from env=mailbait