1. Introduction

1.1. Contributors and Contacts

First I would thank all those people who send questions and suggestions that made a further development of this document possible. It shows me, sharing knowledge is the right way. I would encourage you to send me more suggestion, just write me an email <luc at delouw.ch>

1.2. Why this document was written

All Linux-distributions I tested had a non-optimal defaultsetup of Apache. Additionally all major distributions dont have current versions of Apache.

Finally no commercial Unix are delivered with preinstalled Apache

Since I am installing a lot of customized webservers on different Un*xes therefor I wrote a plaintext document and placed it on my website so I can access it at work. Later a friend posted the URL to a mailinglist, and the first questions arrived. So I decided to put more information on the page.

After a lot of people requested the document as an “official” HOWTO, I decided to prepare it to be one

1.3. What this document is supposed to be

Compiling all the items described below needs a lot of configure-options that nobody can memorize. This is supposed to be a “copy-paste-ready” text to compile apache and friends

Also, people should lern how to build a full-featured Apache-webserver by themself to be independant from any Linux distributors.

1.4. What this document doesn't do for you

It is just a Document, not a script that makes the work for you. You have to do all the steps by yourself.

1.5. Platforms

The original document was for all major Un*x plattforms. Now the HOWTOs are separated for each plattform. You will find the same document adapted for:

• Linux (This Document)

• IBM AIX 4.3 and 5.1L

• Sun Solaris 6/7/8

• Hewlett-Packard HPUX 11

• {Free|Net|Open}-BSD

Important Notice for users running Linux on IBM S/390 (zSeries): postgres and Jserv wont compile on that system. All other programms and modules mentioned in the HOWTO are working perfectly

Other Un*x-platforms: Feel free to create a guest-account for me on your Un*x platform, so I can have a look at the differences.

Windows-Users: I'm sorry, I'm too young for a heart-attack, You will need to upgrade your machine to a “real“ operating system ;-)

1.6. Copyright Information

This document is copyrighted (c) 2000, 2001, 2002 Luc de Louw and is distributed under the terms of the Linux Documentation Project (LDP) license, stated below.

Unless otherwise stated, Linux HOWTO documents are copyrighted by their respective authors. Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in part, in any medium physical or electronic, as long as this copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would like to be notified of any such distributions.

All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice. That is, you may not produce a derivative work from a HOWTO and impose additional restrictions on its distribution. Exceptions to these rules may be granted under certain conditions; please contact the Linux HOWTO coordinator at the address given below.

In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be notified of any plans to redistribute the HOWTOs.

If you have any questions, please contact <linux-howto at metalab.unc.edu>

1.7. Disclaimer

No liability for the contents of this documents can be accepted. Use the concepts, examples and other content at your own risk. As this is a new edition of this document, there may be errors and inaccuracies, that may of course be damaging to your system. Proceed with caution, and although this is highly unlikely, the author(s) do not take any responsibility for that.

All copyrights are held by their by their respective owners, unless specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.

Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements.

You are strongly recommended to take a backup of your system before major installation and backups at regular intervals.

1.8. New Versions

This is the 9th Revision

New revisions of this document will be announced at http://freshmeat.net/apacompile

The latest version of this document is to be found at http://www.delouw.ch/linux

• HTML.

• Postscript (ISO A4 format).

• Acrobat PDF.

• SGML Source.

• HTML gzipped tarball.

1.9. Revision History

1.10. Credits

I would thank all the nice people at < discuss (at) linuxdoc.org> for supporting me in writing HOWTOs

1.11. Feedback

Feedback is most certainly welcome for this document. Without your submissions and input, this document wouldn't exist. Please send your additions, comments and criticts to the following email address : <luc at delouw.ch>.

1.12. Translations

At the moment there are translations available for:

• German

• French (Draft)

Translations to other languages are always welcome. If you translated this document, please let me know, so I can set a link here

1.13. About the author

Luc (in english Luke) is 29 years old, playing around with computers since 20years. Currently he is working as Unix System Engineer for an IT-corporation located in Kloten (Zurich), Switzerland. Main-focus is developping all flavours of innovative Systems running on Linux (and other Un*xes) . Further, for all major Un*x platforms all the “impossible” tasks will end up on his desk (yes, its funny and he loves it!)