Just curious about Mod_SSL and Apache.

I know the topic is off the point but at least, I use PHP on this webserver. As you know, when you shut down Apache and later on, start it up by this command, "apachectl startssl". Then it will ask you for the passphrase (password). This is the private key password for the ssl and encryption purpose. The question here is when I write a bash script that will do it for me automatically by just executing the filename. The question is how to give the passphrase to Apache? I tried many different method of scripting and Apache doesn't received the passphrase from the user input. Anyone know? Or is there some reference somewhere where I can start looking into it? Thanks!