Controlling an external program using Apache

I am a newbie.

I have the following requirements with Apache 2.2.


1) An executable needs to be started when Apache has started
2) The same executable needs to be stopped when Apache is going to
shutdown.


I wanted to know whetner any provision is available in Apache or not.
Please let me know if they is any way to achieve this requirement.


Your help will be really appreciated.


Looking for early responses.


Thanks & Regards,
Shahid

The only thing I can think of is logging scripts, if you pipe a logfile
to an executable it will be started by apache if it stops, (so the
logging is reliable) you could use this feature to help you here.