Freebsd – Automated installation of FreeBSD

I'd recommend against options IPFIREWALL_DEFAULT_TO_ACCEPT. The default is to Default to Deny. The firewall comes up with just one rule deny ip from any to any and stays that way until a script configures exactly what traffic should get through.

Follow-Up Note: RSA (one of the world's leading security technology companies) was hacked recently when part of their firewall was disabled during a maintenance window. This really underscores how quickly a system can be compromised given the right conditions.

If you insist on disabling the firewall until you explicitly block unwanted traffic, please consider using the sysctl available by adding net.inet.ip.fw.default_to_accept=1 to loader.conf. This has the added benefit of being easily modified (no recompiling the kernel) if you change your mind at some point in the future.

Try the following:

1. pstree | less to find the master apache process pid
2. strace -p <pid> -f to watch the system calls from the process form step 1.
3. connect to apache with telnet or a web browser.

You may need to install pstree and strace from freebsd ports. You should see scrolling output from strace as it logs the system calls (file opens, etc.) generated by the running apache process. This should give you some clue as to whether apache is actually running and just not producing output for some reason.

This page about debugging apache contains the above info as well as other troubleshooting tips you can use.

Also you mention your access log but not your error log, have you looked at that? There could be some additional diagnostic info there.

EDIT: Duh, you did say you looked at error log, sorry. Also yes, truss is the default freebsd call tracing tool, not strace. Using truss is a better answer since you don't have to compile it from ports like strace.