To recap you reported the original error:
> apache2: Could not open configuration file /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: > Permission denied Now you've provided more details, from your audit-log: > type=AVC msg=audit(1539750555.347:77): apparmor="DENIED" > operation="open" profile="/usr/sbin/apache2" > name="/etc/apache2/apache2.conf" pid=17485 comm="apache2" > requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=0 ouid=0 There you see "DENIED" along with "exit=-13". You can lookup the meaning of "-13" via this command but I'll guess it correpondes to EPERM ("permission denied"): ausearch --interpret --exit -13 In conclusion: You're using apparmor, it prevented the process from opening the configuration file, which stopped the service from starting. That was logged explicitly :) To fix this either: 1. Fix apparmor so that you can open the file. 2. Disable apparmor. The first might be as simple as `systemctl restart apparmor.service`, that's working on the basis that: * You had apparmor installed. * You've now just installed apache. * This will have given you new apparmor rules. * But they won't be loaded because apparmor wasn't reloaded. * So apache failed. I'm not 100% sure if that is the case, but it seems likely. If not you'll need to do some reading. Perhaps start here: https://wiki.debian.org/AppArmor Steve --