How to force reloading php.ini file? - php

Question

I configured a web server last week, it worked fine.
Today I request its homepage, I see a timezone error, as it should be configured into my php.ini file.
I try a phpinfo(); on my webserver, it gives me:
Configuration File (php.ini) Path /opt/rrh/php/lib
But no php.ini file loaded.
I investigate, the php file exists and has very large permissions:
ls -la /opt/rrh/php/lib
-rwxrwxrwx 1 apache root 68448 Nov 22 10:10 php.ini
I try a parse_ini_file("/opt/rrh/php/lib/php.ini"));, it returns no error...
Of course I restart my server a dozen of time.
What can I do more to resolve my problem?
My system:
Redhat 6
Apache 2.4
PHP 5.5.19 with libphp5.so apache module

Answer 1

TL;DR; If you're still having trouble after restarting apache or nginx, also try restarting the php-fpm service.
The answers here don't always satisfy the requirement to force a reload of the php.ini file. On numerous occasions I've taken these steps to be rewarded with no update, only to find the solution I need after also restarting the php-fpm service. So if restarting apache or nginx doesn't trigger a php.ini update although you know the files are updated, try restarting php-fpm as well.
To restart the service:
Note: prepend sudo if not root
Using SysV Init scripts directly:
/etc/init.d/php-fpm restart # typical
/etc/init.d/php5-fpm restart # debian-style
/etc/init.d/php7.0-fpm restart # debian-style PHP 7
Using service wrapper script
service php-fpm restart # typical
service php5-fpm restart # debian-style
service php7.0-fpm restart. # debian-style PHP 7
Using Upstart (e.g. ubuntu):
restart php7.0-fpm # typical (ubuntu is debian-based) PHP 7
restart php5-fpm # typical (ubuntu is debian-based)
restart php-fpm # uncommon
Using systemd (newer servers):
systemctl restart php-fpm.service # typical
systemctl restart php5-fpm.service # uncommon
systemctl restart php7.0-fpm.service # uncommon PHP 7
Or whatever the equivalent is on your system.
The above commands taken directly from this server fault answer

Answer 2

To force a reload of the php.ini you should restart apache.
Try sudo service apache2 restart from the command line.
Or sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Answer 3

You also can use graceful restart the apache server with service apache2 reload or apachectl -k graceful.
As the apache doc says:
The USR1 or graceful signal causes the parent process to advise the
children to exit after their current request (or to exit immediately
if they're not serving anything). The parent re-reads its
configuration files and re-opens its log files. As each child dies off
the parent replaces it with a child from the new generation of the
configuration, which begins serving new requests immediately.

Answer 4

sudo apachectl restart does the job in 2021 running Mac latest Big Sur OS
For Homebrew apache users it's brew services restart httpd