Apache Guide: The Newbie’s Guide to Installing Apache Page 3

Using configure to configure the Apache installation is the new way to do things. It makes
life a lot easier, and lets someone with a little less experience get a
server running without having to peer into the Apache source code. The
”old-fashioned” way to do things is with the Configure script. That’s Configure with a big C, as opposed to configure with a small c.
Configure is located in the src subdirectory of wherever you unpacked the Apache distribution.

Configure reads in a files called Configuration, which contains settings that determine details about your installation.
In the src directory you will find a sample Configuration file called Configuration.tmpl, which you can copy to Configuration to get started.

After running ”little-c” configure, you will find a file called
Configration.apaci, which is then used by Configure. So configure is really just a user-friendly wrapper on top of Configure

To configure your installation with Configure, edit Configuration and specify how you want things to be done. The most important part of this
file is the section specifying what modules you want installed. This
portion of the file should be fairly self-explanatory – just comment out
the modules you don’t want, and uncomment the ones that you want.

make, make install

Whichever way you configure the installation, you will then need to compile
the code by typing make, and then install it by typing make install.

Starting your new server

One of the things that will be built is a handy utility called apachectl, which helps you to start, stop, and restart your Apache server, as well
as performing a variety of other tasks. To start your Apache server, just
type:

        /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start

(This assumes that you installed Apache in /usr/local/apache, which is the default location.)


In future articles
In upcoming articles, I'll discuss in more detail what you can do with

configure to make your Apache server exactly like you want. And I'll talk about what

the configuration process will be like in Apache 2.0.
And, in a future article, I'll talk about apachectl, and what you can do with it, other than just starting your server.