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4 <TITLE>Compiling and Installing Apache</TITLE>
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17 <H1 ALIGN="CENTER">Compiling and Installing</H1>
20 <p>This document covers compilation and installation of Apache on Unix
21 and Unix-like systems only. For compiling and installation on Windows,
22 see <A HREF="platform/windows.html">Using Apache with Microsoft
23 Windows</A>. For other platforms, see the <a
24 href="platform/">platform</a> documentation.</p>
26 <p>Apache 2.0's configuration and installation environment has changed
27 completely from Apache 1.3. Apache 1.3 used a custom set of scripts
28 to achieve easy installation. Apache 2.0 now uses libtool and
29 autoconf to create an environment that looks like many other Open
32 <h3>Overview for the impatient</h3>
35 <tr><td><a href="#download">Download</a></td>
36 <td><code>$ lynx http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/httpd-2_0_<em>NN</em>.tar.gz
39 <tr><td><a href="#extract">Extract</a></td>
40 <td><code>$ gzip -d httpd-2_0_<em>NN</em>.tar.gz<br>
41 $ tar xvf httpd-2_0_<em>NN</em>.tar
44 <tr><td><a href="#configure">Configure</a></td>
45 <td><code>$ ./configure --prefix=<em>PREFIX</em>
48 <tr><td><a href="#compile">Compile</a></td>
52 <tr><td><a href="#install">Install</a></td>
53 <td><code>$ make install
56 <tr><td><a href="#customize">Customize</a></td>
57 <td><code>$ vi <em>PREFIX</em>/conf/httpd.conf
60 <tr><td><a href="#test">Test</a></td>
61 <td><code>$ <em>PREFIX</em>/bin/apachectl start
66 <p><em>NN</em> must be replaced with the current minor version number,
67 and <em>PREFIX</em> must be replaced with the filesystem path under
68 which the server should be installed. If <em>PREFIX</em> is not
69 specified, it defaults to <code>/usr/local/apache2</code>.</p>
71 <p>Each section of the compilation and installation process is
72 described in more detail below, beginning with the requirements
73 for compiling and installing Apache HTTPD.</p>
77 <p>The following requirements exist for building Apache:</p>
81 <li>Disk Space<br><br> Make sure you have at least 50 MB of temporary
82 free disk space available. After installation Apache occupies
83 approximately 10 MB of disk space. The actual disk space requirements
84 will vary considerably based on your chosen configuration options and
85 any third-party modules.<br><br></li>
87 <li>ANSI-C Compiler and Build System<br><br> Make sure you have an
88 ANSI-C compiler installed. The <a
89 href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html">GNU C compiler
90 (GCC)</a> from the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/">Free Software
91 Foundation (FSF)</a> is recommended (version 2.7.2 is fine). If you
92 don't have GCC then at least make sure your vendors compiler is ANSI
93 compliant. In addition, your <code>PATH</code> must contain basic
94 build tools such as <code>make</code>.<br><br></li>
96 <li>Accurate time keeping<br><br> Elements of the HTTP protocol are
97 expressed as the time of day. So, it's time to investigate setting
98 some time synchronization facility on your system. Usually the ntpdate
99 or xntpd programs are used for this purpose which are based on the
100 Network Time Protocol (NTP). See the Usenet newsgroup <a
101 href="news:comp.protocols.time.ntp">comp.protocols.time.ntp</a> and
102 the <a href="http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/">NTP homepage</a> for more
103 details about NTP software and public time servers.<br><br></li>
105 <li><a href="http://www.perl.org/">Perl 5</a> [OPTIONAL]<br><br> For
106 some of the support scripts like <a href="programs/apxs.html">apxs</a>
107 or <a href="programs/dbmmanage.html">dbmmanage</a> (which are written
108 in Perl) the Perl 5 interpreter is required (versions 5.003 and 5.004
109 are fine). If no such interpreter is found by the `configure' script
110 there is no harm. Of course, you still can build and install Apache
111 2.0. Only those support scripts cannot be used. If you have multiple
112 Perl interpreters installed (perhaps a Perl 4 from the vendor and a
113 Perl 5 from your own), then it is recommended to use the --with-perl
114 option (see below) to make sure the correct one is selected by
115 ./configure. <br><br></li>
119 <h3><a name="download">Download</a></h3>
121 <p>Apache can be downloaded from the <a
122 href="http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/">Apache Software Foundation
123 download site</a> or from a <a
124 href="http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi">nearby mirror</a>.</p>
126 <p>Version numbers that end in <code>alpha</code> indicate early
127 pre-test versions which may or may not work. Version numbers ending
128 in <code>beta</code> indicate more reliable releases that still
129 require further testing or bug fixing. If you wish to dowload the
130 best available production release of the Apache HTTP Server, you
131 should choose the latest version with neither <code>alpha</code> nor
132 <code>beta</code> in its filename.</p>
134 <p>After downloading, especially if a mirror site is used, it is
135 important to verify that you have a complete and unmodified version
136 of the Apache HTTP Server. This can be accomplished by testing the
137 downloaded tarball against the PGP signature, which should always be
138 obtained from the <a href="http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd">main
139 Apache website</a>. The signature file has a filename identical to
140 the source tarball with the addition of <code>.asc</code>.</p>
142 <h3><a name="extract">Extract</a></h3>
144 <p>Extracting the source from the Apache HTTPD tarball is a simple
145 matter of uncompressing, and then untarring:</p>
148 $ gzip -d httpd-2_0_<em>NN</em>.tar.gz<br>
149 $ tar xvf httpd-2_0_<em>NN</em>.tar
152 <p>This will create a new directory under the current directory
153 containing the source code for the distribution. You should
154 <code>cd</code> into that directory before proceeding with
155 compiling the server.</p>
157 <h3><a name="configure">Configuring the source tree</a></h3>
159 <p>The next step is to configure the Apache source tree for your
160 particular platform and personal requirements. This is done using the
161 script <code>configure</code> included in the root directory of the
162 distribution. (Developers downloading the CVS version of the Apache
163 source tree will need to have <code>autoconf</code> and
164 <code>libtool</code> installed and will need to run
165 <code>buildconf</code> before proceeding with the next steps. This is
166 not necessary for official releases.)</p>
168 <p>To configure the source tree using all the default options, simply
169 type <code>./configure</code>. To change the default options,
170 <code>configure</code> accepts a variety of variables and command line
171 options. Environment variables are generally placed before the
172 <code>./configure</code> command, while other options are placed
173 after. The most important option here is the location prefix where
174 Apache is to be installed later, because Apache has to be configured
175 for this location to work correctly. But there are a lot of other
176 options available for your pleasure.</p>
178 <p>For a short impression of what possibilities you have, here is a
179 typical example which compiles Apache for the installation tree
180 /sw/pkg/apache with a particular compiler and flags plus the two
181 additional modules mod_rewrite and mod_speling for later loading
182 through the DSO mechanism:</p>
185 $ CC="pgcc" CFLAGS="-O2" \<br>
186 ./configure --prefix=/sw/pkg/apache \<br>
187 --enable-rewrite=shared \<br>
188 --enable-speling=shared
191 <p>When configure is run it will take several minutes to test for
192 the availability of features on your system and build Makefiles
193 which will later be used to compile the server.</p>
195 <p>The easiest way to find all of the configuration flags for Apache
196 is to run ./configure --help. What follows is a brief description
197 of most of the arguments and environment variables.</p>
199 <h4>Environment Variables</h4>
201 <p>The autoconf build process uses several environment variables to
202 configure the build environment. In general, these variables change
203 the method used to build Apache, but not the eventual features of the
204 server. These variables can be placed in the environment before
205 invoking <code>configure</code>, but it is usually easier to specify
206 them on the <code>configure</code> command line as demonstrated
207 in the example above.</p>
211 <dt><code>CC=...</code></dt>
212 <dd>The name of the C compiler command.</dd>
214 <dt><code>CPPFLAGS=...</code></dt> <dd>Miscellaneous C preprocessor
215 and compiler options.</dd>
217 <dt><code>CFLAGS=...</code></dt>
218 <dd>Debugging and optimization options for the C compiler.</dd>
220 <dt><code>LDFLAGS=...</code></dt>
221 <dd>Miscellaneous options to be passed to the linker.</dd>
223 <dt><code>LIBS=...</code></dt>
224 <dd>Library location information ("-L" and "-l" options)
225 to pass to the linker.</dd>
227 <dt><code>INCLUDES=...</code></dt>
228 <dd>Header file search directories ("-I<em>dir</em>").</dd>
230 <dt><code>TARGET=...</code> [Default: apache]</dt>
231 <dd>Name of the executable which will be built.</dd>
233 <dt><code>NOTEST_CPPFLAGS=...</code></dt>
234 <dt><code>NOTEST_CFLAGS=...</code></dt>
235 <dt><code>NOTEST_LDFLAGS=...</code></dt>
236 <dt><code>NOTEST_LIBS=...</code></dt>
237 <dd>These variables share the same function as their non-NOTEST namesakes.
238 However, the variables are applied to the build process only after
239 autoconf has performed its feature testing. This allows the inclusion of
240 flags which will cause problems during feature testing, but must be used
241 for the final compilation.</dd>
243 <dt><code>SHLIB_PATH=...</code></dt>
244 <dd>Options which specify shared library paths for the compiler and
249 <h4>autoconf Output Options</h4>
253 <dt><code>--help</code></dt>
254 <dd>Prints the usage message including all available options, but
255 does not actually configure anything.</dd>
257 <dt><code>--quiet</code></dt>
258 <dd>Prevents the printing of the usual "checking..." messages.</dd>
260 <dt><code>--verbose</code></dt>
261 <dd>Prints much more information during the configuration process,
262 including the names of all the files examined.</dd>
268 <p>There are currently two ways to configure the pathnames under
269 which Apache will install its files. First, you can specify
270 a directory and have Apache install itself under that directory
271 in its default locations.</p>
274 <dt><code>--prefix=<em>PREFIX</em></code> [Default:
275 /usr/local/apache2]</dt>
276 <dd>Specifies the directory under which the Apache files will be
280 <p>It is possible to specify that architecture-dependent files should
281 be placed under a different directory.</p>
284 <dt><code>--exec-prefix=<em>EPREFIX</em></code> [Default:
285 <em>PREFIX</em>]</dt>
286 <dd>Specifies the directory under which architecture-dependent files
290 <p>The second, and more flexible way to configure the install path
291 locations for Apache is using the <code>config.layout</code> file.
292 Using this method, it is possible to separately specify the location
293 for each type of file within the Apache installation. The
294 <code>config.layout</code> file contains several example
295 configurations, and you can also create your own custom configuration
296 following the examples. The different layouts in this file are
297 grouped into <code><Layout FOO>...</Layout></code>
298 sections and referred to by name as in <code>FOO</code>.</p>
302 <dt><code>--enable-layout=<em>LAYOUT</em></code></dt>
303 <dd>Use the named layout in the <code>config.layout</code> file
304 to specify the installation paths.</dd>
308 <p>Presently it is not possible to mix the
309 <code>--enable-layout</code> and <code>--prefix</code> options. Nor
310 is it possible to individually specify detailed pathnames on the
311 <code>configure</code> command line. If you want just a basic
312 install, you can simply use the <code>--prefix</code> option on its
313 own. If you want to customize your install, you should edit the
314 <code>config.layout</code> file and use the
315 <code>--enable-layout</code> option.</p>
319 <p>Apache is a modular server. Only the most basic functionality is
320 included in the core server. Extended features are available in
321 various modules. During the configuration process, you must select
322 which modules to compile for use with your server. You can view a <a
323 href="mod/index-bytype.html">list of modules</a> included in the
324 documentation. Those modules with a <a
325 href="mod/module-dict.html#Status">status</a>
326 of "Base" are included by default and must be specifically disabled if
327 you do not want them. Modules with any other status must be
328 specifically enabled if you wish to use them.</p>
330 <p>There are two ways for a module to be compiled and used with
331 Apache. Modules may be <em>statically compiled</em>, which means that
332 they are permanently included in the Apache binary. Alternatively, if
333 your operating system supports Dynamic Shared Objects (DSOs) and
334 autoconf can detect that support, then modules may be <em>dynamically
335 compiled</em>. DSO modules are stored separately from the Apache
336 binary, and may be included or excluded from the server using the
337 run-time configuration directives provided by <a
338 href="mod/mod_so.html">mod_so</a>. The mod_so is automatically
339 included in the server if any dynamic modules are included in the
340 compilation. If you would like to make your server capable of loading
341 DSOs without actually compiling any dynamic modules, you can
342 explicitly <code>--enable-so</code>.</p>
346 <dt><code>--enable-<em>MODULE</em>[=shared]</code></dt> <dd>Compile
347 and include the module <em>MODULE</em>. The identifier
348 <em>MODULE</em> is the <a
349 href="mod/module-dict.html#ModuleIdentifier"
350 >Module Identifier</a> from the module documentation without the
351 "_module" string. To compile the module dynamically as a DSO, add the
352 option <code>=shared</code>.</dd>
354 <dt><code>--disable-<em>MODULE</em></code></dt>
355 <dd>Remove the module <em>MODULE</em> which would otherwise be
356 compiled and included.</dd>
360 <p>In addition to the standard set of modules, Apache 2.0 also
361 includes a choice of <a href="mpm.html">Multi-Processing Modules</a>
362 (MPMs). One, and only one MPM must be included in the compilation
363 process. The default MPMs for each platform are listed on the <a
364 href="mpm.html">MPM documentation page</a>, but can be overridden
365 on the <code>configure</code> command line.
369 <dt><code>--with-mpm=<em>NAME</em></code></dt>
370 <dd>Choose the mpm <em>NAME</em>.
376 <p>Apache includes a support program called <a
377 href="suexec.html">suexec</a> which can be used to isolate user CGI
378 programs. However, if suexec is improperly configured, it can cause
379 serious security problems. Therefore, you should carefully read and
380 consider the <a href="suexec.html">suexec documentation</a> before
381 implementing this feature.</p>
384 <h3><a name="compile">Building the package</a></h3>
386 <p>Now you can build the various parts which form the Apache package
387 by simply running the command:</p>
393 <p>Please be patient here, since a base configuration takes
394 approximately 3 minutes to compile under a Pentium III/Linux 2.2
395 system, but this will vary widely depending on your hardware and the
396 number of modules which you have enabled.</p>
399 <h3><a name="install">Installing the package</a></h3>
401 <p>Now its time to install the package under the configured
402 installation PREFIX (see <code>--prefix</code> option above) by running:</h3>
407 <p>If you are upgrading, the installation will not overwrite
408 your configuration files or documents.</p>
411 <h3><a name="customize">Customizing the package</a></h3>
413 <p>Next, you can customize your Apache HTTP server by editing the <a
414 href="configuring.html">configuration files</a> under
418 $ vi PREFIX/conf/httpd.conf
421 <p>Have a look at the Apache manual under <a
422 href="./">docs/manual/</a> or <a
423 href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/">http://httpd.apache.org/docs/</a>
424 for a complete reference of available <a
425 href="mod/directives.html">configuration directives</a>.</p>
427 <h3><a name="test">Testing the package</a></h3>
429 <p>Now you can <a href="invoking.html">start</a> your Apache HTTP
430 server by immediately running:</p>
433 $ PREFIX/bin/apachectl start
436 <p>and then you should be able to request your first document via URL
437 http://localhost/ (when you built and installed Apache as root) or
438 http://localhost:8080/ (when you built and installed Apache as a
439 regular user). The web page you see is located under the <a
440 href="mod/core.html#documentroot">DocumentRoot</a> which will usually
441 be <code>PREFIX/htdocs/</code>. Then <a href="stopping.html">stop</a>
442 the server again by running:</p>
444 <blockquote><code> $ PREFIX/bin/apachectl stop </code></blockquote>
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