Apache2 "masked" and removed after apt full-upgrade & autoremove on Ubuntu 24.04

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Hi all,

I wanted to document an issue I just ran into after performing system updates on my HestiaCP server (Ubuntu 24.04) and share the solution that got me back online. Hopefully, this saves someone elses time!

The Context
I ran a chain of maintenance commands to update the system and clean up packages:

sudo apt update -y && sudo apt full-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && sudo apt clean -y && sudo apt autoclean -y

The Issue
Immediately after this finished, Apache stopped working and all websites were unresponsive. When attempting to restart it via the HestiaCP GUI, I got the error:
Error: ERROR: Restart of apache2 failed.

Investigating via the CLI revealed that apache2 had essentially been uninstalled/masked, likely by the autoremove step (not sure about this though):

  1. systemctl status apache2 returned:

    ○ apache2.service   Loaded: masked (Reason: Unit apache2.service is masked.)   Active: inactive (dead)

  2. apache2ctl -t returned:
    Command 'apache2ctl' not found

The Solution (Could be incomplete?)
It seems the system marked the Apache binaries as unnecessary dependencies during the upgrade. To fix it, I had to unmask the service and reinstall the binaries + the PHP module.

Here are the steps I took:

1. Unmask and Reinstall

sudo systemctl unmask apache2
sudo apt update
sudo apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-php -y

2. Verify Port Configuration
I was worried that a fresh install would reset /etc/apache2/ports.conf to Listen on port 80 (which would conflict with Nginx). However, I checked my running ports:

sudo ss -tulpn | grep apache2

Output confirmed it was correctly listening on Hestia’s backend ports (8080/8443) and NOT port 80:
tcp LISTEN 0 511 10.0.0.206:8443 ...
tcp LISTEN 0 511 10.0.0.206:8080 ...

3. Rebuild Web Domains
To ensure all config files, SSL paths, and PHP versions were perfectly synced, I finished by running:

sudo /usr/local/hestia/bin/v-rebuild-web-domains admin

I had to redo step 3 for all users, but I am unsure if it was even needed.

Question:
Everything seems to be running fine now (sites are up, Hestia is happy).
Did I miss any critical cleanup steps? specifically, does apt install apache2 automatically pick up the previous Hestia configuration files without issue, or should I be looking for any specific “gotchas” regarding PHP versions or mods-enabled that might have been reset?

Thanks!