Unable to enable https

netstat -an | grep 443

what do you see?

Well.. I checked all the basic stuff already.. nothing is running on port 443.

[root@ahoi httpd]# netstat -anlp|grep 443
[root@ahoi httpd]#

[root@ahoi ~]# grep 443 ssl.conf
Listen 443 https
<VirtualHost _default_:443>
ServerName 192.168.1.103:443

There is no other config file using a listen directive on port 443.

Thanks,
Sri

Are you using name based or IP based virtual hosts?

Do you have any ssl configuration in any other conf file in /etc/httpd/conf.d or /etc/httpd/conf?

Yes.. we are using name based virtual hosts to host multiple vhosts, but they are all http. (no https).

We don't have any other ssl config file anywhere else..

[root@ahoi httpd]# pwd
/etc/httpd
[root@ahoi httpd]# grep -r 443 .
./conf.d/ssl.conf:Listen 443 https
./conf.d/ssl.conf:<VirtualHost _default_:443>
./conf.d/ssl.conf:ServerName 192.168.1.103:443

[root@ahoi httpd]# grep -ri listen .
./conf/httpd.conf:# Listen: Allows you to bind Apache to specific IP addresses and/or
./conf/httpd.conf:# Change this to Listen on specific IP addresses as shown below to
./conf/httpd.conf:#Listen 12.34.56.78:80
./conf/httpd.conf:Listen 80
./conf.d/ssl.conf:# When we also provide SSL we have to listen to the
./conf.d/ssl.conf:Listen 443 https


Thanks,
Sri

You should be using a fully qualified domain name instead of an IP address.  Past that, I'd need to see the ssl.conf file.

Something to consider:

stop httpd
lsof -i -n|grep http

I tried by changing the IP to the FQDN, doesn't work. Here's the ssl.conf file for your reference: ( i changed the actual domain name on purpose)
[root@ahoi ~]# grep -v '#' ssl.conf|grep -v '^$'
Listen 443 https
SSLPassPhraseDialog exec:/usr/libexec/httpd-ssl-pass-dialog
SSLSessionCache         shmcb:/run/httpd/sslcache(512000)
SSLSessionCacheTimeout  300
SSLRandomSeed startup file:/dev/urandom  256
SSLRandomSeed connect builtin
SSLCryptoDevice builtin
<VirtualHost _default_:443>
DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
ServerName ahoi.com:443
ErrorLog logs/ssl_error_log
TransferLog logs/ssl_access_log
LogLevel warn
SSLEngine on
SSLProtocol all -SSLv2
SSLCipherSuite HIGH:MEDIUM:!aNULL:!MD5
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/ca.key
<Files ~ "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php3?)$">
    SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
</Files>
<Directory "/var/www/cgi-bin">
    SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
</Directory>
BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-5]" \
         nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
         downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
CustomLog logs/ssl_request_log \
          "%t %h %{SSL_PROTOCOL}x %{SSL_CIPHER}x \"%r\" %b"
</VirtualHost>                                  

BTW, this is the error that we get while starting apche:

 httpd[3776]: (98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:443

Thanks,
Sri

that's ipv6.

let's eliminate this as the problem.

change this:

 Listen 443 https

to this:

 Listen 192.168.1.103:443

Same issue:

Mar 12 09:26:10 ahoi.com httpd[5786]: (98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address 192.168.1.103:443
Mar 12 09:26:10 ahoi.com httpd[5786]: no listening sockets available, shutting down
Mar 12 09:26:10 ahoi.com httpd[5786]: AH00015: Unable to open logs

ok back to the previous request.

shut down httpd and run lsof.

[root@ahoi conf.d]# service httpd stop
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl stop  httpd.service
# lsof -i -n|grep http
[root@ahoi conf.d]#

which linux distribution are you using?

[root@ahoi conf.d]# cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS Linux release 7.0.1406 (Core)

[root@ahoi conf.d]# uname -a
Linux ahoi.com 3.10.0-123.8.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Sep 22 19:06:58 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

grep -i include /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

i wonder if you're including both all files in conf.d as well as ssl.conf

There we go, not sure why there are two directives. I have disabled the later one now and https is working.

Include conf.d/*.conf
IncludeOptional conf.d/*.conf

Thank you so much.

I've requested that this question be closed as follows:

Accepted answer: 0 points for Starquest321's comment #a40661147

for the following reason:

ssl.conf is getting included twice which was the root cause.

clicked in error...how can I award you the points? Thanks for your help.

that i don't know but i appreciate the acknowledgement.