apache won't start

Question

Ok, so this has me so stumped that I don't see myself being able to solve the problem on my own. I am running apache on my laptop under linux, so that when I'm away from my desktop I can still work with php and mySql. Everything works great. There is nothing wrong with the syntax of the httpd.conf; apachectl configtest returns OK. However, there is one cafe that I go to where apache will not start. I'll go down the street to the next ap and apache will start without issue, but at this one cafe apache won't start. Any help will be appreciated.

The log entry that I believe to be relevant is

[Wed Nov 16 14:03:11 2011] [alert] (EAI 2)Name or service not known: mod_unique_id: unable to find IPv4 address of "laptop"
[Wed Nov 16 14:33:36 2011] [alert] (EAI 2)Name or service not known: mod_unique_id: unable to find IPv4 address of "laptop"
[Wed Nov 16 14:42:48 2011] [alert] (EAI 2)Name or service not known: mod_unique_id: unable to find IPv4 address of "laptop"
[Wed Nov 16 14:45:27 2011] [alert] (EAI 2)Name or service not known: mod_unique_id: unable to find IPv4 address of "laptop"
[Wed Nov 16 14:52:54 2011] [alert] (EAI 2)Name or service not known: mod_unique_id: unable to find IPv4 address of "laptop"

Answer 1

If output of a command hostname is

# hostname
laptop

Giving this error in your logs:

(EAI 2)Name or service not known: mod_unique_id: unable to find IPv4 address of "laptop"

Then you should put in your /etc/hosts file sth like this :

127.0.0.1       laptop.homenetwork laptop localhost
::1             laptop.homenetwork laptop localhost 

It also helps some people to put

ServerName localhost

in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf file

Answer 2

wait will apache not start or is the port blocked in this cafe? that would make sense to me and not that apache won't start. also, what happens if apache is running prior to going to this cafe? if you're still having issues, and i don't mean to sound cheeky here, but don't go to that particular cafe :)