# Vista / Instant Rails (Apache) startup error

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vista-instant-rails-apache-startup-error/89534>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 21, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vista-instant-rails-apache-startup-error/89534 "2007-03-21T01:06:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ike](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/df705f/32.png) [@ike](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ike)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vista-instant-rails-apache-startup-error/89534/1 "2007-03-21T01:06:09Z")

</div>

I have instant rails (1.4) on an XP machine, the contents of which  
(i.e. C:\InstantRails and everything under it) I copied over to a new  
Vista machine.

Everything fies up nicely EXCEPT Apache, which fails with:

“Error in Apache Configuration File:  
Syntax Error on line 74 of c:/instantrails/apache/conf/httpd.conf  
ServerRoot must be a valid directory”

Except this is a valid directory on this machine, just as it was on  
the ole xp one. If I go to that line 74 in httpd.conf, it reads:

ServerRoot “${path}/apache”

Can someone please point out what must be obvious, that I do not see  
here? Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ike](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/df705f/32.png) [@ike](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ike)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 4:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vista-instant-rails-apache-startup-error/89534/2 "2007-03-22T04:48:23Z")

</div>

On 3/20/07, Ike [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> ServerRoot must be a valid directory"
> 
> Except this is a valid directory on this machine, just as it was on  
> the ole xp one. If I go to that line 74 in httpd.conf, it reads:
> 
> ServerRoot “${path}/apache”
> 
> Can someone please point out what must be obvious, that I do not see  
> here? Thanks

${path} is an Instant Rails internal identifier that is supposed to be  
replaced with the path to where you have placed Instant Rails. If you  
look  
in the “conf\_files” sub directory, you’ll see a whole bunch of model  
config  
files that are full of references to ${path}.

When IR puts up the dialog saying that IR “has moved, do you want to  
update  
the config files?”, IR reads all of these files, substitutes the install  
path for each instance of ${path} and writes the resulting files to  
there  
various runtime directories.

The fact that the runtime apache config file still contains ${path} is  
pretty bizarre.

Try renaming your base IR directory to something else and start up IR to  
force a config file update (make sure the IR base path does not contain  
any  
space characters). Hopefully that will clear things up.

Curt