Announcing: Server::Control and apachectlp

Server::Control allows you to control servers ala apachectl, but with  
better diagnostics and many more features. It includes both a drop-in  
replacement for apachectl (”apachectlp”) and an OO interface.

Though it was designed with Apache in mind, there are also subclasses  
for HTTP::Server::Simple and Net::Server, and it’s general enough to  
use with any server that has a pid file and listens on a port.

Features include:

     * Checks server status via both pid file and port connect
     * Detects and handles corrupt or out-of-date pid files
     * Reports what is using a port when it is busy (via lsof)
     * Tails the error log when server fails to start
     * Supports sudo usage for restricted (< 1024) port
     * Easy to customize for your environment with start/stop hooks,  
etc.

Coming soon: plugins for common tasks associated with starting and  
stopping servers, such as generating conf files from templates and  
auto-restarting a server on file change.

If you try this and have problems getting it to work, or suggestions  
for improvement, please let me know!

Jon