Unable to connect to local network after deleting everything in /var/log

Question

I'm using MythTV and MythWeb has suddenly stopped working. When I try to connect, my web browser reports:

Unable to connect Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 192.168.1.100.

I still have no trouble connecting to the internet, and ifconfig results seem OK:

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1c:c0:79:83:13  
          inet addr:192.168.1.100  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:c0ff:fe79:8313/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:963141 errors:0 dropped:90 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:726145 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:449248447 (449.2 MB)  TX bytes:174625833 (174.6 MB)
          Interrupt:20 Memory:e3400000-e3420000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:6009249 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6009249 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:2149138281 (2.1 GB)  TX bytes:2149138281 (2.1 GB)

I get the same error when I tryhttp://192.168.1.100/ so I think this is probably less a mythweb error and more an...Apache error?

Update: Since it appears it may be port 80 related (thanks Nathan), I checked my /etc/apache2/ports.conf file, which did contain a "Listen 80" line, so I checked and apache's not running (facepalm)!

Trying to start apache with: sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start returns:

AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using ::1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message
(2)No such file or directory: AH02291: Cannot access directory '/var/log/apache2/' for main error log
(2)No such file or directory: AH02291: Cannot access directory '/var/log/apache2/' for error log of vhost defined at /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf:1

Is the port 80 service running? As root, post the output of command netstat -napl | grep LISTEN | grep -w 80 — Nathan Adams, Nov 05 '14 at 20:44
Nothing - it just runs the command and exits without any output. — Fred Hamilton, Nov 06 '14 at 00:30
@FredHamilton If you have found the final solution to your problem, go ahead and post an answer. If you just have more troublehsooting information that will aid in finding the answer editing the question is the way to go. I hope that answers your question :) — Seth, Nov 07 '14 at 20:37

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

As the apache errors indicate, it wasn't starting because there was no /var/log/apache2/ directory due to my deleting everything in my /var/log directory while trying to debug an unrelated problem. I recreated the /var/log/apache2/ directories to get rid of the last two errors, and added 'ServerName localhost' to my /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file per these instructions: to get rid of the first error.

I don't know why the log directory isn't simply recreated if missing, but that was the problem.

Unable to connect to local network after deleting everything in /var/log

1 Answers1

Linked