Could not reliably determine the server’s fully qualified domain name, using ::1.

Preface:

I’ve been using ChatGPT as a development tool as of late. Prior to searching for possible bug fixes, I’ll check to see if ChatGPT has an answer to what I would normally use as a query on Google or Bing. In this instance, I receive the following error after running service apache2 start.

Me:

AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server’s fully qualified domain name, using ::1. Set the ‘ServerName’ directive globally to suppress this message

ChatGPT:

This message is generated by the Apache web server and is indicating that the server is not configured with a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the current IP address.

To resolve this issue, you can set the ServerName directive globally in the Apache configuration file to specify the FQDN of your server. This can be done by following these steps:

1. Open the Apache configuration file for editing. This is typically located at /etc/apache2/apache2.conf or /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.
2. Search for the ServerName directive. If it is commented out (i.e., prefixed with a #), remove the # character to uncomment the line.
3. If the ServerName directive does not exist, add it to the configuration file as follows:

ServerName yourserver.example.com

Replace yourserver.example.com with the FQDN of your server.

4. Save the configuration file and restart the Apache service to apply the changes:

sudo service apache2 restart

After completing these steps, the message should no longer appear and the Apache web server should be able to determine the server’s FQDN.

Result:

The error did not repeat itself.