Writing Apache Modules with Perl and C

Using FTP and CPAN

The Apache web server is available for download from the web. To obtain it via the web, go to the Apache home page, http://www.apache.org/, and follow the links to the most recent version.

mod_perl and all the various Perl modules and helper utilities mentioned in this book are available via anonymous FTP from any of the sites on the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). This is a list of several hundred public FTP sites that mirror each others' contents on a regular basis.

To find a CPAN site near you, point your web browser to Tom Christiansen's CPAN redirector services at http://www.perl.com/CPAN/. This will automatically take you to an FTP site in your geographic region. From there, you can either browse and download the files you want directly, or retrieve the full list of CPAN sites and select one on your own to use with the FTP client of your choice. Most of the modules you will be interested in obtaining will be located in the modules/by-module subdirectory.

Once you've downloaded the Perl module you want, you'll need to build and install it. Some modules are 100 percent Perl and can just be copied to the Perl library directory. Others contain some component written in C and need to be compiled. If you are using a Win32 system, you may want to look for a binary version of the module you're interested in. Most of the popular modules are available in precompiled binary form. Look in the CPAN ports/win32 directory for the version suitable ...