Virtual Host Debugging

I just came across this obscure feature of apache2ctl / httpd:

# apache2ctl -S
VirtualHost configuration:
wildcard NameVirtualHosts and _default_ servers:
*:443                  webmail.nibble.bz (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/webmail.nibble.bz:3)
*:80                   is a NameVirtualHost
         default server alia.dl.nibble.bz (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:2)
         port 80 namevhost alia.dl.nibble.bz (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:2)
         port 80 namevhost blog.nibble.bz (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/blog.nibble.bz:3)
         port 80 namevhost www.nibble.bz (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/blog.nibble.bz:17)
         port 80 namevhost forums.thenibble.org (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/forums.thenibble.org:2)
         port 80 namevhost lists.thenibble.org (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/lists.thenibble.org:10)
         port 80 namevhost siona.nibble.bz (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/siona.nibble.bz:1)
         port 80 namevhost uro.mine.nu (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/uro.mine.nu:2)
         port 80 namevhost webmail.nibble.bz (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/webmail.nibble.bz:51)
         port 80 namevhost www.thenibble.org (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/www.thenibble.org:3)
         port 80 namevhost thenibble.org (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/www.thenibble.org:15)
Syntax OK

"man apache2ctl" doesn't give the switch parameters but merely alludes to the presence of them:

SYNOPSIS
When acting in pass-through mode, apachectl can take all the arguments available for the httpd binary.

apachectl [ httpd-argument ]

And on my system (Ubuntu 8.04), "man httpd" doesn't report diddly. It is in a manpage *somewhere* so I found it Online:

http://www.manpagez.com/man/8/httpd/

And what it says is:

-S Show the settings as parsed from the config file (currently only
shows the virtualhost settings).

So there you go. Hidden away in the documentation "somewhere" is possibly the most useful virtual host diagnostic tool.

- Arch