Apache: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition

Group

The Group directive sets the group under which the server will answer requests.

Group unix-group
Default: Group #-1
Server config, virtual host

To use this directive, the standalone server must be run initially as root. unix-group is one of the following:

groupname

Refers to the given group by name

#groupnumber

Refers to a group by its number

It is recommended that you set up a new group specifically for running the server. Some administrators use group nobody, but this is not always possible or desirable, as noted earlier.

Tip

If you start the server as a non-root user, it will fail to change to the specified group and will instead continue to run as the group of the original user.

Now, when you run httpd and look for the PID, you will find that one copy belongs to root, and several others belong to webuser. Kill the root copy and the others will vanish.