Manual installation of apache has never been easier. Follow all the provided steps here.
Download Installer File
Download the latest Apache source distribution from www.apache.org
Unpack Installation Files
The source distribution comes as a compressed archive. Let’s say that we are
installing Apache 1.3.12 (apache_1.3.12.tar.gz). Uncompress and untar the
archive with the following command on SSH:
$ tar -zxvf apache_1.3.12.tar.gz
This will create a directory named apache_1.3.12 in your current working directory. We’ll call this the Apache source directory.
Apache Installation Configuration
Please read the README file in the Apache source directory. Configuring your environment to compile Apache. The source distribution comes with a script called configure, which checks your environment for the necessary support files (like headers, shared libraries and utility programs) that are required to successfully compile Apache. To configure, change directory to the Apache source directory and type
$ ./configure –prefix=/usr/local/apache
The prefix argument indicates where we wish to install Apache. This command will output several lines on the screen. Essentially this command creates the Makefiles for the build according to your system configuration. If there are errors in configure, you may be missing some header files or utility programs which you must install before proceeding.
Compiling the Apache
Once configure runs successfully you can compile Apache using the make command
$ make
This will output several lines on the screen indicating that it is compiling and linking Apache. This should normally conclude with no errors, however if any errors occur, they will usually be caused due to missing utility programs or libraries. The Apache FAQ has some pointers if you get stuck (http://www.apache.org/docs/misc/FAQ.html)
Installing the Apache
Apache installs itself in /usr/local/apache by issuing the command
$ make install
If this concludes successfully your system now has Apache installed. You should see Apache’s installation files in /usr/local/apache and the main configuration file in /usr/local/apache/conf called httpd.conf
Apache Configuration Setting
Apache is configured through a single file /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf. This file consists of a number of Apache Directives, which determine the various operating parameters of the Apache server. For purposes of a simple installation, you will need to modify only a few directives described below
DocumentRoot – This is the location of the directory from which HTML files are served. You can replace the default by any directory. The directive,
DocumentRoot “/usr/local/apache/htdocs”
instructs Apache to serve files from /usr/local/apache/htdocs. In other words, when you try and access http://servername/somepage.html in a browser, Apache will serve the file /usr/local/apache/htdocs/somepage.html.
Directory options – Once the DocumentRoot is defined, you must instruct Apache how to serve and handle various files found in that directory. This is achieved by modifying the Directory directive. The Directory directive has various options such as execution of server side includes, whether to follow symbolic links from the directory, access control to the directory etc. In our configuration file, we need not change anything.
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
That’s about it. Apache is now configured for default behavior and web serving. If there are any other parameters that you need to set, the configuration file is well commented and pretty much self-explanatory.
Starting Apache
Apache comes with a script named apachectl that facilitates starting, stopping, restarting apache.
$ /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start
/usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start: httpd started
To stop apache use /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl stop
Test your installation
Once Apache is running, fire up your web browser and access http://localhost/. If your installation was successful and Apache is running, you should see a test page saying something like “If you can see this, it means that the installation of the Apache web server software on this system was successful”. You now have a successful installation of Apache running on your system!
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