Start web sharing with terminal

Question

Hi All
in os 10.6 I can start web sharing simply using this command in the terminal:
sudo apachectl start
this is the same that enabling web sharing in the system preferences.
Now in os 10.7 it don't works.
Using
sudo /usr/sbin/httpd -k start -D WEBSHARING_ON
it seems works but system preferences still show web sharing disabled and after restarting computer, web sharing is disabled
someone can help me?

Answer 1

Perhaps you're thinking of the SnowLeopard behavior. In Lion, starting Web Sharing is not exactly the same as starting httpd. Please inspect the contents of org.apache.httpd.plist, before and after starting Web Sharing in System Prefs, and it will help you understand. Before, you'll see something like:
<key>ProgramArguments</key><array>
     <string>/usr/sbin/httpd</string>
     <string>-D</string>
     <string>FOREGROUND</string>
</array>
After starting it, you'll see the WEBSHARING_ON flag added:
<key>ProgramArguments</key><array>
     <string>/usr/sbin/httpd</string>
     <string>-D</string>
     <string>FOREGROUND</string>
     <string>-D</string>
     <string>WEBSHARING_ON</string>
</array>
And, have you noticed that even if you load the launchd.plist with -w, the Disabled flag in the launchd.plist is always set to True? That's because the actual state of the launchd job is reflected in this file:
/var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist
Finally, apachectl start/stop simply loads and unloads the launchd.plist.