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Chapter 5: Deploying Web and FTP Servers

May 22, 2000

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Installing Apache Web Server

Traditionally, Apache required recompiling every time you wanted to add a new feature, or ëmodule', as all modules were compiled into the Apache executable. More recently, the Apache group have incorporated support for DSO linking, which, like DLLs in Windows, allow new modules to be added later without recompiling the whole program. We will install Apache using DSO linking, which will make installation of ApacheJServ and other modules easier. Static linking is very slightly faster in operation than DSO linking, and some older distributions of Linux will not allow DSO. If you have to do a static installation, just leave out the --enable-module=most and --enable-shared=max parameters in step 4.

1. If you are using Red Hat 6.0, you first need to correct an error in the distribution, by making a C header file available from its correct location. Type:

# ln -s /usr/include/db1/ndbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h

2. Download the latest version of Apache (www.apache.org) to /usr/local/src, unzip and extract it:

# tar -xvfz apache_x_x_x.tar.gz

3. Enter the created directory:

# cd /usr/local/src/apache_x_x_x

The next three steps configure, build and install Apache. The first parameters supplied to the configure script specifies the path for the apache installation.

4. # ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache --enable-module=most --enable-shared=max

5. # make

6. # make install

That's it ‑ Apache is installed! We will cover the configuration fully later in the chapter, so for now we will just configure enough to test it:

1. Open /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf for editing. This contains every configuration command for the entire server, so it may look quite intimidating. However, don't be put off as it is simpler than it looks!

2. Search for the ServerName directive (about a third of the way through). Replace it with ServerName http://localhost -- we will use a real network identity later, but using localhost for now provides us a simple check of our Apache installation. Save and close httpd.conf.

3. Start the apache server with the command /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start.

4. If Netscape, or some other web browser, is installed, type http://localhost into the location bar. If not, type lynx localhost at the command line. Either way, you should be presented with a congratulations page:

Getting to Know the Web Server

Your working web server installation should be self-contained within /usr/local/apache. If you installed Apache differently (e.g. using a Red Hat RPM), and find your configuration changes aren't having any effect, try searching for stray files: type find / -name httpd.conf -- print. Some proprietary distributions place the active httpd.conf in other folders.

Inside /usr/local/apache will be a set of further directories, the ones we will use are:

bin ‑ contains all the program executables

cgi-bin ‑ which is the default location for CGI files

conf ‑ contains all the Apache configuration files

htdocs ‑ the default root directory for your web site. A sample index.html file is already in this directory to produce the 'It Worked' page you saw in the last section

logs ‑ contains all the server logs by default. We will deal with these in more depth later.

We will change the locations of the default web site root directory and CGI location later when we cover Apache configuration, and develop a consistent placement of all web site content within the /home directory where it is well separated from the application. Separating content from application is a useful technique if your fellow system administrators make the occasional mistake when updating web site content.

To start Apache, type: /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start.

To stop Apache, type: /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl stop.

The above two commands can be performed together. To restart Apache, type: /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl restart. The alternative command /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl graceful does the same but finishes serving any current requests first.