Apache HTTP Server Version 2.0
This document covers compilation and installation of Apache on Unix and Unix-like systems only. For compiling and installation on Windows, see Using Apache with Microsoft Windows. For other platforms, see the platform documentation.
Apache 2.0's configuration and installation environment has changed completely from Apache 1.3. Apache 1.3 used a custom set of scripts to achieve easy installation. Apache 2.0 now uses libtool
and autoconf
to create an environment that looks like many other Open Source projects.
If you are upgrading from one minor version to the next (for example, 2.0.50 to 2.0.51), please skip down to the upgrading section.
Download | $ lynx http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi |
Extract | $ gzip -d httpd-2_0_NN.tar.gz |
Configure | $ ./configure --prefix=PREFIX |
Compile | $ make |
Install | $ make install |
Customize | $ vi PREFIX/conf/httpd.conf |
Test | $ PREFIX/bin/apachectl start |
NN must be replaced with the current minor version number, and PREFIX must be replaced with the filesystem path under which the server should be installed. If PREFIX is not specified, it defaults to /usr/local/apache2
.
Each section of the compilation and installation process is described in more detail below, beginning with the requirements for compiling and installing Apache HTTPD.
The following requirements exist for building Apache:
PATH
must contain basic build tools such as make
.ntpdate
or xntpd
programs are used for this purpose which are based on the Network Time Protocol (NTP). See the Usenet newsgroup comp.protocols.time.ntp and the NTP homepage for more details about NTP software and public time servers.apxs
or dbmmanage
(which are written in Perl) the Perl 5 interpreter is required (versions 5.003 or newer are sufficient). If you have multiple Perl interpreters (for example, a systemwide install of Perl 4, and your own install of Perl 5), you are advised to use the --with-perl
option (see below) to make sure the correct one is used by configure
. If no Perl 5 interpreter is found by the configure
script, you will not be able to use the affected support scripts. Of course, you will still be able to build and use Apache 2.0.Apache can be downloaded from the Apache HTTP Server download site which lists several mirrors. Most users of Apache on unix-like systems will be better off downloading and compiling a source version. The build process (described below) is easy, and it allows you to customize your server to suit your needs. In addition, binary releases are often not up to date with the latest source releases. If you do download a binary, follow the instructions in the INSTALL.bindist
file inside the distribution.
After downloading, it is important to verify that you have a complete and unmodified version of the Apache HTTP Server. This can be accomplished by testing the downloaded tarball against the PGP signature. Details on how to do this are available on the download page and an extended example is available describing the use of PGP.
Extracting the source from the Apache HTTPD tarball is a simple matter of uncompressing, and then untarring:
$ gzip -d httpd-2_0_NN.tar.gz
$ tar xvf httpd-2_0_NN.tar
This will create a new directory under the current directory containing the source code for the distribution. You should cd
into that directory before proceeding with compiling the server.
The next step is to configure the Apache source tree for your particular platform and personal requirements. This is done using the script configure
included in the root directory of the distribution. (Developers downloading the CVS version of the Apache source tree will need to have autoconf
and libtool
installed and will need to run buildconf
before proceeding with the next steps. This is not necessary for official releases.)
To configure the source tree using all the default options, simply type ./configure
. To change the default options, configure
accepts a variety of variables and command line options.
The most important option is the location --prefix
where Apache is to be installed later, because Apache has to be configured for this location to work correctly. More fine-tuned control of the location of files is possible with additional configure options.
Also at this point, you can specify which features you want included in Apache by enabling and disabling modules. Apache comes with a Base set of modules included by default. Other modules are enabled using the --enable-module
option, where module is the name of the module with the mod_
string removed and with any underscore converted to a dash. You can also choose to compile modules as shared objects (DSOs) -- which can be loaded or unloaded at runtime -- by using the option --enable-module=shared
. Similarly, you can disable Base modules with the --disable-module
option. Be careful when using these options, since configure
cannot warn you if the module you specify does not exist; it will simply ignore the option.
In addition, it is sometimes necessary to provide the configure
script with extra information about the location of your compiler, libraries, or header files. This is done by passing either environment variables or command line options to configure
. For more information, see the configure
manual page.
For a short impression of what possibilities you have, here is a typical example which compiles Apache for the installation tree /sw/pkg/apache
with a particular compiler and flags plus the two additional modules mod_rewrite
and mod_speling
for later loading through the DSO mechanism:
$ CC="pgcc" CFLAGS="-O2" \
./configure --prefix=/sw/pkg/apache \
--enable-rewrite=shared \
--enable-speling=shared
When configure
is run it will take several minutes to test for the availability of features on your system and build Makefiles which will later be used to compile the server.
Details on all the different configure
options are available on the configure
manual page.
Now you can build the various parts which form the Apache package by simply running the command:
$ make
Please be patient here, since a base configuration takes approximately 3 minutes to compile under a Pentium III/Linux 2.2 system, but this will vary widely depending on your hardware and the number of modules which you have enabled.
Now it's time to install the package under the configured installation PREFIX (see --prefix
option above) by running:
$ make install
If you are upgrading, the installation will not overwrite your configuration files or documents.
Next, you can customize your Apache HTTP server by editing the configuration files under PREFIX/conf/
.
$ vi PREFIX/conf/httpd.conf
Have a look at the Apache manual under docs/manual/ or consult http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/ for the most recent version of this manual and a complete reference of available configuration directives.
Now you can start your Apache HTTP server by immediately running:
$ PREFIX/bin/apachectl start
and then you should be able to request your first document via URL http://localhost/
. The web page you see is located under the DocumentRoot
which will usually be PREFIX/htdocs/
. Then stop the server again by running:
$ PREFIX/bin/apachectl stop
The first step in upgrading is to read the release announcement and the file CHANGES
in the source distribution to find any changes that may affect your site. When changing between major releases (for example, from 1.3 to 2.0 or from 2.0 to 2.2), there will likely be major differences in the compile-time and run-time configuration that will require manual adjustments. All modules will also need to be upgraded to accomodate changes in the module API.
Upgrading from one minor version to the next (for example, from 2.0.55 to 2.0.57) is easier. The make install
process will not overwrite any of your existing documents, log files, or configuration files. In addition, the developers make every effort to avoid incompatible changes in the configure
options, run-time configuration, or the module API between minor versions. In most cases you should be able to use an identical configure
command line, an identical configuration file, and all of your modules should continue to work. (This is only valid for versions after 2.0.41; earlier versions have incompatible changes.)
To upgrade across minor versions, start by finding the file config.nice
in the build
directory of your installed server or at the root of the source tree for your old install. This will contain the exact configure
command line that you used to configure the source tree. Then to upgrade from one version to the next, you need only copy the config.nice
file to the source tree of the new version, edit it to make any desired changes, and then run:
$ ./config.nice
$ make
$ make install
$ PREFIX/bin/apachectl stop
$ PREFIX/bin/apachectl start
--prefix
and a different port (by adjusting the Listen
directive) to test for any incompatibilities before doing the final upgrade.