ok, I saw that the output of that error message had a hyperlink and I clicked on it and saw this:

"Use svcs -xv service_fmri to see a list of services waiting for the service to start"

What is a "service_fmri"? Where do I find it? is it in the error message?

WooHoo!

Sometimes asking questions out loud gets me my own answer. I actually did the nasty an read the man page on svcs and got it to work. After ~38 years, you'd think MAN pages would eventually get a little more user-friendly!

root> svcs -xv /network/http:apache2
svc:/network/http:apache2 (Apache 2 HTTP server)
State: maintenance since Sat Mar 08 00:06:08 2008
Reason: Start method exited with $SMF_EXIT_ERR_CONFIG.
See: Sun Message ID: SMF-8000-KS
See: man -M /usr/apache2/man -s 8 httpd
See: /var/svc/log/network-http:apache2.log
Impact: This service is not running.
root> more /var/svc/log/network-http:apache2.log
[ Feb 19 21:43:30 Rereading configuration. ]
[ Feb 20 01:30:35 Disabled. ]
[ Mar 8 00:06:08 Enabled. ]
[ Mar 8 00:06:08 Executing start method ("/lib/svc/method/http-apache2 start") ]
[ Mar 8 00:06:08 Method "start" exited with status 96 ]
root> svcadm clear /network/http:apache2
root> svcs -xv /network/http:apache2
svc:/network/http:apache2 (Apache 2 HTTP server)
State: online since Fri Apr 04 17:34:53 2008
See: man -M /usr/apache2/man -s 8 httpd
See: /var/svc/log/network-http:apache2.log
Impact: None.

i've never liked the apache it ships with. idk why. just don't

service_fmri is the new SMF functionality of sol10. its to help make sol10 more "windowsy". however, there is a good side to it as it allows for concurrent services to start thus speeding up the boot time. svcs is really to help you see which services are running. you can make your own script to start up as a service with svcadm, svcfg and some scripting... both xml stuff and regular shell scripting.

Yeah, I have two Solaris 10 books. I have been to lazy to open them up. it is about time for me to read them through.