what does this line mean on my ps aux ../apache2 -k start

Question

I am running a web server using nginx but i can see apach2 lines when i type

ps aux | grep apache

The result it looks like this :

www-data  3280  0.0  1.1  99708 45204 ?        S    14:11   0:09 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  8651  0.0  0.9  99708 36120 ?        S    18:32   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
root      9428  0.0  0.0   3408   764 pts/0    R+   19:04   0:00 grep --color=auto apache
www-data 23048  0.0  0.0   3728  2172 ?        S    04:00   0:00 /usr/bin/ruby /usr/lib/collectd/plugins/apache_ps -h 01-6PMO317H3OSIK
www-data 26491  0.0  1.1 101252 46308 ?        S    06:30   0:22 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 26492  0.0  1.2 105120 50316 ?        S    06:30   0:23 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 26493  0.0  1.1  99708 46660 ?        S    06:30   0:24 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 26494  0.0  1.1 103436 47148 ?        S    06:30   0:23 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 26495  0.0  1.2 103304 48524 ?        S    06:30   0:22 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 26685  0.0  1.1  99708 45236 ?        S    06:38   0:23 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28435  0.0  1.1  99708 43916 ?        S    08:06   0:19 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 30950  0.0  1.1  99716 44672 ?        S    10:12   0:16 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
root     31480  0.0  0.6  97400 26544 ?        Ss    2013   1:22 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

What is this about ?

Answer 1

Every line with /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start represents the command that started an apache process with the argument -k start to run a new instant of apache

Apache2 comes by default with many distributions, you can remove it if you only want ngix