Hi i have a java application that starts/stops/restart Apache and it should also check for its status, so i have looked how checking for status of apache and it appears that you have to check for the state of the service, problem is that when i use apachectl start the service httpd is still not started, is that normal ? i check for the service state by doing service httpd status . [root@lxrdcpsm ~]# service httpd status httpd is stopped [root@lxrdcpsm ~]# /apps/apache/2.4.4/bin/apachectl start httpd (pid 20502) already running [root@lxrdcpsm ~]# service httpd status httpd is stopped [root@lxrdcpsm ~]# /apps/apache/2.4.4/bin/apachectl stop [root@lxrdcpsm ~]# service httpd status httpd is stopped [root@lxrdcpsm ~]# /apps/apache/2.4.4/bin/apachectl start [root@lxrdcpsm ~]# service httpd status httpd is stopped [root@lxrdcpsm ~]#