brew services startup issue

[codingjungle]

Additional Info

• I am using Windows Subsystem for Linux

Output of brew config

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 5.1.1
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 894a3d23ac0c8aaf561b9874b528b9cb2e839201
Last commit: 2 days ago
Branch: stable
Core tap JSON: 24 Mar 22:55 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_DISPLAY: :0
HOMEBREW_DOWNLOAD_CONCURRENCY: 48
HOMEBREW_FORBID_PACKAGES_FROM_PATHS: set
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 24
Homebrew Ruby: 4.0.1 => /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/4.0.1/bin/ruby
CPU: 24-core 64-bit zen3
Clang: 22.1.1
Git: 2.53.0 => /bin/git
Curl: 8.19.0 => /bin/curl
Kernel: Linux 6.19.9-1-cachyos x86_64 GNU/Linux
OS: CachyOS
Host glibc: 2.43
Host libstdc++: 6.0.34
/usr/bin/gcc: 15.2.1
/usr/bin/ruby: N/A
glibc: N/A
gcc@12: N/A
gcc: 15.2.0_1
xorg: N/A

Output of brew doctor

Your system is ready to brew.

Description of issue

I installed apache thru home brew and started it up with:

brew services start httpd

it will tell me the following after running the command:

==> Successfully started httpd (label: homebrew.httpd)

however if i try to go to localhost or 127.0.0.1 it says it can't connect. i tried use port 8080, still nothing.

when i run

❯ brew services info httpd --verbose

i get the following:

httpd (homebrew.httpd)
Running: ✘
Loaded: ✘
Schedulable: ✘
File: /home/cju/.config/systemd/user/homebrew.httpd.service ✔
Registered at login: ✔
Command: /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -D FOREGROUND

i'm not entirely sure what i am doing wrong, any help would be appreciated.

[nahyun27]

Hi, The issue is that brew services on Linux uses systemd user services under the hood,
and while brew reports success, the service itself is not actually running.

Running: ✔ but Loaded: ✘ typically means the process failed right after launch.

Most commonly this is caused by:

• invalid httpd.conf
• port already in use
• permission issues (binding to port <1024)

Here are the steps to diagnose and fix:

1. Check the actual error logs first:

journalctl --user -xe -u homebrew.httpd --no-pager

This will show why the service failed to start.

2. Reload systemd and try starting manually:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user start homebrew.httpd
systemctl --user status homebrew.httpd

3. Validate your httpd config (common culprit):

/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -t

A misconfigured httpd.conf (e.g., wrong ServerName or port binding) will cause silent startup failure.

4. If you're accessing this from a non-login session, enable linger:

loginctl enable-linger $USER

Without this, systemd user services may not persist outside of an active login session.

5. As a quick test, run httpd directly to see raw errors:

/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -D FOREGROUND

Most likely the journalctl output from step 1 will immediately point to the root cause (port conflict, config error, or missing dependency).

[codingjungle]

it was the config, it had user _www in it, i created a www-data group and user and added it and now it works.

thankyou for pointing me in the right direction.

[daeho-ro]

Can you check what is going on there with this command?

/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -D FOREGROUND