Bug#1125111: apache2: Apache2 won't start, error "Read-only file system: AH10082: Can't change owner of /etc/apache2/md/challenges"

Bastien Roucaries <[email protected]> Fri, 09 Jan 2026 19:32:38 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.apache
Message-ID	<8364366.lvqk35OSZv__49842.6896565192$1767983724$gmane$org@debian-ei>

Le vendredi 9 janvier 2026, 18:57:02 heure normale d’Europe centrale Juan Rafael Fernández García a écrit :
> On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 at 16:53, Bastien Roucaries <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > What is the output of
> > - dpkg -L apache2
> > - dpkg -S /etc/apache2/md
> 
> No trace of /etc/apache2/md/ in packages apache, python3-acme,
> certbot, python3-certbot or python3-certbot-apache.
> 
> So maybe /etc/apache2/md/ is a remnant of an old version (I have been
> updating Debian Testing on this computer since 2017).
> 
> Then I had the idea of renaming /etc/apache2/md/ to
> /etc/apache2/md_removed/. The error has changed

> [md:error] ... (30)Read-only file system: AH10046: setup store for
> /etc/apache2/md
> AH00016: Configuration Failed

grep -R /md on the apache2 directory will help to identify the configuration.

In all the case this kind of configuration should go to /var/cache/apache2 (exactly /var/cache/apache2/md)

And existing configaration should be moved on it.... But it depends how this was created

for your case move the /etc/apache2/md directory to /var/cache/md and create a symlink from /etc/apache2/md to  /var/cache/md 

and restart
>

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