First, this server is not my own. Many others use it. So, I must edit my site
setup separately. System wide changes are out of scope.
For the same reason, restarts won't happen easily, not just because I need/want
it. I tried to confirm that my configuration was changing (as I edited the
files)
I really don't have any suggestions for you at this time as I am unfamiliar with
the configuration for your environment... I don't like single server shared
machines.. and there is little reason for such environments these days with
virtualized machines being so simple and inexpensive to operate..