15 Mag 11 How to cleanly install apache httpd webserver from source

Apache is a great piece of software and it’s very powerful. You can here find how to install apache web server, “The right and quick way” ™ 🙂 Apache will be compiled with modules support.

We begin downloading source code from httpd.apache.org official website.

Important: for security reasons download apache only from the official website or by your distribution vendor (redhat, debian, etc)!
Important: choose the right version for you, but if you can pick the last stable version of 2.2.X.

You can then untar your fresh apache source distribution and beginning to play with configure:

tar jxvf httpd-2.2.??.tar.bz2
cd httpd-2.2.??
./configure –with-included-apr –with-expat=builtin –prefix=/your_apache_installation_path –enable-mods-shared=most –enable-ssl –enable-proxy –enable-proxy-connect –enable-proxy-http –enable-proxy-balancer

Here we are going to compile apache with most of its modules compiled as shared objects and obviously with the shared object support enabled.
May be that the configure process will not find something. If so, remember to download and install the development version of the needed library. I always use the development package of the distribution (ex. libssl-dev, openssl-devel, etc).
If the configure process fails because of a dependency (development!!!) library not found but you already installed it, it means that the apache building tool does not find it.
Sometimes, in not standard environments (hpux, etc) apache will not find the openssl dev library but it’s installed. For example if apache fails a dependency check on openssl, you can fix the problem passing the argument –with-ssl=/ssl_path to configure.

If the configure pass, you have to call:

make

If the make process pass without problems, you have to execute:

make install

If you have problems compiling apache, most probably the problem is that you failed to install building prerequisites: development libraries, or the building tool cannot find where they are installed. If the configure fails you can take a read on config.log or reading the configure file (it’s a generated shell script) searching for the reported error and finding the cause by yourself (wrong path of the library?). If the failing stuff fires on compiling (make) you have to find the problem going to the source directory reported by the make utility and searching for the source file that it’s failing. You may require a patch, may be you caught a apache bug or may be your compiling chain is not clean.

I have to go now, let me know if you have problems.
Ciao, Dino.