When your apache web server dies when starting with a message that goes something like “alarm clock” or SIGALARM, your solution is to get rid of the file:
/var/run/httpd.pipe
Strace helped to track this one down:
[admin@theSuperStar] httpd # strace /usr/sbin/httpd
open("/var/run/httpd.pipe", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_APPEND|O_LARGEFILE, 0666) = ? ERESTARTSYS (To be restarted)
--- SIGALRM (Alarm clock) @ 0 (0) ---
+++ killed by SIGALRM +++
[admin@theSuperStar] httpd # mv /var/run/httpd.pipe /var/run/httpd.pipe.off
[admin@theSuperStar] httpd #/etc/init.d/httpd start
Starting httpd: [ OK ]