httpd container unexpectedly stops when resizing terminal window
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100
- Issue type
- Bug
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Activity status
- Stale
- Tech stack
- docker
- Domain
- devops, infrastructure
Research direction
Start by reproducing the issue with docker run httpd:latest while resizing the terminal, then read the reported Apache httpd SIGWINCH behavior and the linked Apache bug discussion. Done would require an agreed container-side resolution or documented workaround, but the issue does not identify a file, test, or accepted approach.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
When one starts the container and resizes the terminal window, it suddenly stops.
To reproduce:
docker run httpd:latest
[...]
[resizing window]
[Tue Jan 13 11:25:11.623227 2026] [core:notice] [pid 1:tid 1] AH00094: Command line: 'httpd -D FOREGROUND'
[Tue Jan 13 11:25:13.981184 2026] [mpm_event:notice] [pid 1:tid 1] AH00492: caught SIGWINCH, shutting down gracefully
The reason, it appears, is that resizing a terminal causes a SIGWINCH signal, and Apache httpd has decided to reuse that signal as a "graceful server shutdown" signal. See also:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/32647166/3780436
https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/stopping.html#gracefulstop
https://bz.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=50669
The latter link is their bugtracker, which, unfortunately, is only accessible with an account. But the bug has been closed as "WONTFIX". (Comment from Apache dev in 2011: "You are correct that SIGWINCH is used to signal a windows size change to the applications running on a terminal. Due to the lack of other signal numbers and given the fact that httpd normally runs detached from a terminal the SIGWINCH signal was chosen to instruct httpd to do a graceful shutdown. So this works as designed.")
I think this is a poor design decision by Apache httpd, but, apparently, intentional. But I will also add a comment that, maybe, in 2026 this is an issue to be seen differently.
- Dominant language
- Dockerfile
- Stars
- 319
- Forks
- 342
- PR merge metrics
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