Apache Unable to open logs: /Applications/MAMP/Library/${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

Question

I am trying to run a project built in Ubuntu with PHP on fat-free framework. I am using MAMP on macOS Yosemite 10.10.1.

I imported a database successfully through phpmyadmin & following these instructions. My httpd-vhosts.conf file looks like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

    DocumentRoot "/Applications/MAMP/htdocs"

    <Directory "/Applications/MAMP/htdocs>
        Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes 
        AllowOverride All 
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from All
    </Directory>    

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel debug 

    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined    
</VirtualHost>

The project files are located at the "htdocs" web root folder in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs. Note that when I am trying to run it in this form the Apache server throws error, it does not run. When I comment the ErrorLog section the Apache server runs properly but all I get is a blank page.

The error message in the apache_error.log is:

No such file or directory: httpd: could not open error log file /Applications/MAMP/Library/${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log. Unable to open logs

Answer 1

It appears that your APACHE_LOG_DIR variable is not defined.

See this thread. It says that you need to define it in /etc/apache2/envvars. I'm not sure exactly where then envvars file would be on a Mac, but it should be with all the other apache2 configuration files.

Alternately, you should just use a hardcoded path rather than ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}. For example:

ErrorLog /Applications/MAMP/logs/error.log
CustomLog /Applications/MAMP/logs/access.log combined