Is Apache running?

I've just taken over webmastery for my company's site, and I'm preparing a report for my partner about the LAMP stack. But I'm a new CS graduate, and the only thing I know really well is Java coding, so I need some help!

I'm trying to find out a) if Apache is installed and b) what version is running.

My Linux version is "Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS \n \l", as reported by /etc/issue.

Is it running?

pgrep apache

Any output is good, nothing means it isn't running.

What version:

aptitude show apache2

Have you tried talking to it?

telnet localhost 80
HEAD / HTTP/1.0
<extra carriage return>

To check for Apache 1.X see below, for Apache 2.X see wzzrd's answer.

The apache web server process is called httpd so a quick way to start with confirming apache is installed and running is:

ps -A | grep 'httpd'

ps -A lists all the running processes grep 'httpd' filters only lines containing 'httpd'

If you don't get any results, apache is not running.

regarding version, try:

apachectl status

in the output there should be a line like:
Apache/1.3.41 Server at www.xyz.com Port 80

If it cannot find apachectl, it may not be in your execution path, try:
whereis apachectl
to see where it is located

These are distribution agnostic ways so no matter how apache was installed on the system, you should find it with these.

Click here: http://localhost If you don't get an error 404, it's running.