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  * Detects and handles corrupt or out-of-date pid files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