[Malvern] /etc/apache2 gone?!?

[Robin Wilson]

Hi all,

Just got back from a nice college trip in Vienna to find that my linux box 
has crashed! I could type things at a text terminal but they did nothing 
when I pressed Enter. I decided to reset the pc - and did so. Once I had 
booted back up I could not access any websites on my server. I decided to 
restart the apache2 daemon using apache2ctl restart and it said it couldnt 
find the command!

I thought that was strange and tried to cd to the /etc/apache2 directory to 
check the command was still there and it told me it couldn't do that as the 
directory didn't exist!! So somehow my apache2 directory seems to have 
vanished! I can't think how this could have happened except for 1) A 
malicious user somehow getting in and deleting it or 2) A hard 
drive/filesystem error or failure that caused it to disappear into the 
ether!

I've looked in the apache logs and the system logs and have seen that the 
server was fine at 21:12 on Wed 27th - because someone accessed it and 
downloaded a file - but there have been no accesses since then! There are no 
errors in the apache error log except for routine ones caused by a small 
error in my configuration file. I've grepped the system logs for anything 
apache related but haven't found anything.

I would be interested if any of you have any idea where this directory might 
have gone and what I should do now. I have tried using Yast (I use Suse 9.2 
btw) to reinstall all the apache2 packages (which it shows as uninstalled at 
the moment) but it just wizzes straight through them and says "An error 
occured on package installation" for each package. I have checked that all 
the files it is trying to install from are there (I copied all the install 
files from the dvds to my hard drive to make installs easier - so I checked 
the yast package manager was still pointed to the correct directory. Luckily 
I have a backup of my apache configuration file (it took me so long to get 
that file right!) - and I thought all I would need to do would be to 
reinstall apache and then replace the configuration files - that doesn't 
seem to be so, and if anyone has any ideas on what to do I would be most 
greatful.

Thanks in advance,

Robin