Web serving

This chapter includes applications that respond to requests originating from LAN, intranet and internet clients. Specifically covered are HTTP requests and FTP requests.

Apache-2.0.53

Introduction to Apache

The Apache package contains an open-source HTTP server. It is useful for creating local intranet web sites or running huge web serving operations.

Package information

Installation of Apache

For security reasons, running the server as an unprivileged user and group is strongly encouraged. Create the following group and user using the following commands (as root):

groupadd apache &&
useradd -c "Apache Server" -d /dev/null -g apache -s /bin/false apache

The following patch will define the layout of destination directories and, among them, the build directory at /usr/lib/apache/build. This will allow the modules added to Apache to be configured without errors. Apply the patch:

patch -Np1 -i ../httpd-2.0.53-config-1.patch

Build and install Apache by running the following commands:

./configure --enable-layout=FHS --enable-mods-shared=all &&
make

Now, as the root user:

make install &&
chown root:root /usr/sbin/{apxs,apachectl,dbmmanage,envvars-std,envvars} \
    /usr/include/apache/* /usr/lib/apache/httpd.exp \
    /usr/share/man/man1/{dbmmanage,htdigest,htpasswd}.1 \
    /usr/share/man/man8/{ab,apachectl,apxs,httpd}.8 \
    /usr/share/man/man8/{logresolve,rotatelogs,suexec}.8 &&
chown -R apache:apache /srv/www

Command explanations

--with-expat=/usr: Uses system installed expat. If you have installed expat and do not use this switch, the Apache installation may overwrite some files from the expat installation.

--enable-mods-shared=all: The modules should be compiled and used as Dynamic Shared Objects (DSOs) so they can be included and excluded from the server using the run-time configuration directives.

--enable-ssl: Use this switch to create the mod_ssl module and enable SSL support.

chown root:root ...: This command changes the ownership of some installed files, the result of building the package as a user other than root.

chown -R apache:apache /srv/www: By default, the installation process installs files (documentation, error messages, default icons, etc.) with the ownership of the user that extracted the files from the tar file. If you want to change the ownership to another user, you should do so at this point. The only requirement is that the document directories need to be accessable by the httpd process with (r-x) permissions and files need to be readable (r--) by the apache user.

Configuring Apache

Config files

/etc/apache/*

Configuration Information

The main configuration file is named httpd.conf. Modify it to run the server as a dedicated user:

sed -i -e "s%User nobody%User apache%" \
       -e "s%^Group #-1%Group apache%" \
    /etc/apache/httpd.conf

See http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/configuring.html for detailed instructions on customizing your Apache HTTP server.

There's a problem with the ISAPI DSO module caused from compiling with GCC-3.4.1. Comment out the module from the configuration file with the following command:

sed -i -e "s/^LoadModule isapi_module/# &/" \
    /etc/apache/httpd.conf

If you want the Apache server to start automatically when the system is booted, install the /etc/rc.d/init.d/apache init script included in the blfs-bootscripts-6.0 package.

make install-apache

Contents

Installed Programs: ab, apachectl, apr-config, apu-config, apxs, checkgid, dbmmanage, htdbm, htdigest, htpasswd, httpd, instdso.sh, logresolve and rotatelogs
Installed Libraries: libapr-0.[so,a], libaprutil-0.[so,a] and /usr/lib/apache/*.so
Installed Directories: /etc/apache, /srv/www, /usr/include/apache, /usr/lib/apache and /var/log/apache

Short Descriptions

ab

is a tool for benchmarking your Apache HTTP server.

apachectl

is a front end to the Apache HTTP server which is designed to help the administrator control the functioning of the Apache httpd daemon.

apxs

is a tool for building and installing extension modules for the Apache HTTP server.

dbmanage

is used to create and update the DBM format files used to store usernames and passwords for basic authentication of HTTP users.

htdigest

is used to create and update the flat-files used to store usernames, realms and passwords for digest authentication of HTTP users.

htpasswd

is used to create and update the flat-files used to store usernames and passwords for basic authentication of HTTP users.

httpd

is the Apache HTTP server program.

instdso.sh

is a script which installs Apache DSO modules.

logresolve

is a post-processing program to resolve IP-addresses in Apache's access log files.

rotatelogs

is a simple program for use in conjunction with Apache's piped log file feature.