How to install Apache on droplet running Ruby on Rails?

August 21, 2014 2.1k views
hello460576
By:
hello460576

Hey,

I have discourse running on my droplet and would like to install a mail server. I was following this guide (https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-a-mail-server-using-postfix-dovecot-mysql-and-spamassasin) and encountered the issue listed below:

* Starting web server apache2                                                 
(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80
(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
AH00015: Unable to open logs
Action 'start' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

How do I fix this issue? Discourse requires Ruby on Rails. I'm on Ubuntu 14.04.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

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2 Answers
asb MOD August 21, 2014

Hi!

You seem to have Apache already installed. That error is Apache failing to start because something is already listening on port 80, presumably Discourse. Why exactly do you need to install Apache? It's not necessary to have Apache running to set up a mail server.

Also, you don't necessarily need to run your own mail server. You can configure Discourse to use an external service like Mandril to send mail. Mandril will let you send 12k emails per month on its free level. I'd encourage you to take that route. It's much simpler than hosting your own SMTP server.

If you really need Apache running, you can configure Discourse to listen on a different port and then use Apache as a proxy in front of it.

How To Use Apache HTTP Server As Reverse-Proxy Using mod_proxy Extension
by O.S. Tezer
In this DigitalOcean article, we are going to see set up Apache on Ubuntu 13 and use it as a reverse-proxy to welcome incoming connections and redirect them to application server(s) running on the same network. For this purpose, we are going to use and work with the mod_proxy extension and several other related Apache modules.
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hello460576 August 21, 2014

I'm using mandrill for discourse at the moment. Do I need a mail server to setup email address under specific domain? I was under the impression that I needed one for personal emails addresses. Pardon ignorance on this front, I'm fairly new at it.

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