Compiling and Installing Apache

Downloading Apache

Information on the latest version of Apache can be found on the Apache web server at http://www.apache.org/. This will list the current release, any more recent beta-test release, together with details of mirror web and anonymous ftp sites.

Compiling Apache

This release of Apache supports the notion of `optional modules'. However, the server has to know which modules are compiled into it, in order for those modules to be effective; this requires generation of a short bit of code (`modules.c') which simply has a list of them.

If you are satisfied with our standard module set, and expect to continue to be satisfied with it, then you can just edit the stock Makefile and compile as you have been doing previously. If you would like to select optional modules, however, you need to run the configuration script.

To do this:

  1. Edit the file `Configuration'. This contains the per-machine config settings of the Makefile, and also an additional section at the bottom which lists the modules which have been compiled in, and also names the files containing them. You will need to:
    1. Select a compiler and compilation options as appropriate to your machine.
    2. Uncomment lines corresponding to those optional modules you wish to include (among the Module lines at the bottom of the file) or add new lines corresponding to custom modules you have written.

      Note that DBM auth has to be explicitly configured in, if you want it; just uncomment the corresponding line.

  2. Run the `Configure' script:
    % Configure
    Using 'Configuration' as config file
    %
    This generates new versions of the Makefile and of modules.c. If you want to maintain multiple configurations, you can say, e.g.,
    % Configure -file Configuration.ai
    Using alternate config file Configuration.ai
    %
  3. Type `make'.

    The modules we place in the Apache distribution are the ones we have tested and are used regularly by various members of the Apache development group. Additional modules contributed by members or third parties with specific needs or functions are available at <URL:http://www.apache.org/dist/contrib/modules/>. There are instructions on that page for linking these modules into the core Apache code.

Installing Apache

After compilation, you will have a binary called `httpd' in the src/ directory. A binary distribution of Apache will supply this file.

The next step is to edit the configuration files for the server. In the subdirectory called `conf' you should find distribution versions of the three configuration files: srm.conf-dist, access.conf-dist and httpd.conf-dist. Copy them to srm.conf, access.conf and httpd.conf respectively.

First edit httpd.conf. This sets up general attributes about the server; the port number, the user it runs as, etc. Next edit the srm.conf file; this sets up the root of the document tree, special functions like server-parsed HTML or internal imagemap parsing, etc. Finally, edit the access.conf file to at least set the base cases of access.

Finally, make a call to httpd, with a -f to the full path to the httpd.conf file. I.e., the common case:

/usr/local/etc/apache/src/httpd -f /usr/local/etc/apache/conf/httpd.conf
The server should be now running.

By default the srm.conf and access.conf files are located by name; to specifically call them by other names, use the AccessConfig and ResourceConfig directives in httpd.conf.

Home Index