Apache Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1. Installation

For this Cookbook to be useful, you need to install the Apache Web server software. So what better way to start than with a set of recipes that deal with the installation?

There are many ways of installing this package; one of the features of open software like Apache is that anyone may make an installation kit. This allows vendors (such as Debian, FreeBSD, Red Hat, Mandrake, Hewlett-Packard, and so on) to customize the Apache file locations and default configuration settings so that these settings fit with the rest of their software. Unfortunately, one of the consequences of customization is that the various prepackaged installation kits are almost all different from one another, which means that when it comes to getting assistance, you need to find someone familiar with the kit you’re using.

In addition to installing it from a prepackaged kit, of which the variations are legion, there’s always the option of building and installing it from the source yourself. This has both advantages and disadvantages; on the one hand, you know exactly what you installed and where you put it, but, on the other hand, it’s possible that binary add-on packages will expect files to be in locations other than those you have chosen.

If setting up the Web server is something you’re going to do once and never again, using a packaged solution prepared by your system vendor is probably the way to go. However, if you anticipate applying source patches, adding or removing modules, or ...