The FreeBSD Diary

(TM)

Providing practical examples since 1998

If you buy from Amazon USA, please support us by using this link.

installing www server (apache) 2 August 1998

Need more help on this topic? Click here
This article has no comments
Show me similar articles

See also Apache topics. There are more recent apache articles there.

See also Front Page Extensions - security considerations for details on securing FrontPage.

2 August 1998

I want to install a www server on my machine. So I looked at Apache, which is highly regarded. And free. I started about 10am.

Installing Apache

First I found out that Apache comes in many flavours. I wanted the one with the MS FrontPage extensions already installed. That's because this website is written using FrontPage. Through my friend, the mailing list archives, I found a reference to the Apache Server w/FrontPage Module. I just followed the steps listed on that page and installed it.

But wait! There's more...

I had downloaded that file to /usr/local. Then did the untar via tar -xzf apache-fp.131.tgz. Next was the make install. That's when I was told:

WARNING: MS FrontPage Extentions require the DES Library
WARNING: Install the DES Library, then build apach-fp
And yes, that is how they spell extensions.

So, off to install DES I went. But I didn't get very far.

8:30pm - What? DES is installed

I've concluded that DES is actually installed. I checked the Recognizing your crypt mechanism section of the FreeBSD handbook. From the details on that page, I conclude that DES is installed. Namely, the following is what I find:

$ cd /usr/lib
$ ls -l /usr/lib/libcrypt*
lrwxr-xr-x  1 bin  bin  13 Sep  5 12:50 libcrypt.a -> 
                                           libdescrypt.a
lrwxr-xr-x  1 bin  bin  18 Sep  5 12:50 libcrypt.so.2.0 -> 
                                           libdescrypt.so.2.0
lrwxr-xr-x  1 bin  bin  15 Sep  5 12:50 libcrypt_p.a -> 
                                           libdescrypt_p.a

So off to the #FreeBSD on irc.ais.net, where the suggestion is made that I install the ports instead. So, following the Compiling ports from the Internet section from the FreeBSD handbook, I started to install the ports version of Apache. For what it's worth, I was just told that using ports was the lazy way to go. It seems easy enough. When I've followed the instructions above, I've rarely had a port go wrong.

9:40pm - Apache is installed. How do I run it?

The install has completed. My first task is to find httpd. So I decide to learn more about the find command. From the manual pages, I discover that:

find / -name "httpd"

will find all examples of files named "httpd". I find what I want in /usr/local/sbin. From there I execute the command:

./httpd

The response I get is:

httpd: cannot determine local host name.
Use ServerName to set it manually.

I locate the file /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf and edit it. I locate the line which contains ServerName. I amend to line to refer to the FreeBSD box. I restart httpd using the command above.

WOO HOO!

The daemon starts and I get no nasty replies. A quick ps -auwd reveals that the process is indeed running. I swap to my NT1 box and plug in the IP address of my FreeBSD box. IT WORKS!

10:00pm - Apache is running. How do I provide access to the outside world?

Well, luckily, I've already tried this one. In my /etc/rc.firewall file, I've disallowed access to port 80, which is the port for http. I enabled this, restarted the firewall filters, and all went well.

The next step is to publish something over there.

Well, that worked. WOO HOO! Apache is up and running!

Need more help on this topic? Click here
This article has no comments
Show me similar articles