[2024-feb-29] Sad news: Eric Layton aka Nocturnal Slacker aka vtel57 passed away on Feb 26th, shortly after hospitalization. He was one of our Wiki's most prominent admins. He will be missed.

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Setup Apache httpd server

This is a general how to to get a basic httpd service up and running.

Applies to:

  • Slackware 14.1 (and possibly previous versions)
  • Apache 2 (and possibly previous versions)

Basic Setup

Edit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf - Here is what you care about, change/uncomment the following lines as necessary:

vi /etc/httpd/httpd.conf

  # optional, require a proper DNS configuration
  ServerAdmin you@myawesomeserver.com
  ServerName www.myawesomeserver.com:80
  
  <Directory />
      AllowOverride none
      Require all denied
  </Directory>

  DocumentRoot "/srv/httpd/htdocs"
  <Directory "/srv/httpd/htdocs">
      Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
      AllowOverride None
      Require all granted
  </Directory>

  <IfModule dir_module>
      DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.pl index.php
  </IfModule>
  
  ErrorLog "/var/log/httpd/error_log"
  
  CustomLog "/var/log/httpd/access_log" common
  
  # Optional but nice. this creates a directory listing if index.html is missing.
  Include /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-autoindex.conf
  # Optional
  Include /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-default.conf

All other default settings should be good.

Make httpd start on boot.

chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd
/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd start

HINT: With these settings, your default webpages should be put in /srv/httpd/htdocs. Your default logs should be under /var/log/httpd.

User Directories

This will allow users to have individual web space (/home/user/public_html). These can be accessed from the web by adding “~username” to the URL.

Example: http://www.slackware.com/~pat

Edit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf - Here is what you care about, change/uncomment the following lines as necessary:

 vi /etc/httpd/httpd.conf

  LoadModule authz_host_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_authz_host.so
  LoadModule authz_user_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_authz_user.so
  LoadModule authz_core_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_authz_core.so
  LoadModule userdir_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_userdir.so
  Include /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-userdir.conf

Edit /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-userdir.conf, change/uncomment the following:

vi /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-userdir.conf

  <Directory "/home/*/public_html">
      AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit Indexes
      Options MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
      Require method GET POST OPTIONS
  </Directory>

Restart Apache

/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd restart

Enable CGI-BIN

This enables CGI script execution on your webserver.

Edit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf - Here is what you care about, change/uncomment the following lines as necessary:

 vi /etc/httpd/httpd.conf

  LoadModule proxy_module      lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy.so
  LoadModule proxy_fcgi_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_fcgi.so
  LoadModule proxy_scgi_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_scgi.so
  LoadModule cgid_module       lib64/httpd/modules/mod_cgid.so

  <IfModule alias_module>
      ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/srv/httpd/cgi-bin/"
  </IfModule>

  <Directory "/srv/httpd/cgi-bin">
    AllowOverride None
    Options None
    Require all granted
  </Directory>

  <IfModule mime_module>
    AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
  </IfModule>

Restart Apache

/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd restart

HINT: Your cgi-bin directory will be /srv/httpd/cgi-bin/. The scripts can be accessed by adding /cgi-bin/SCRIPTNAME to the website URL.

Example: http://www.slackware.com/cgi-bin/awesomescript.pl

NOTE: This does not apply to PHP scripts, see the below for them.

User CGI-BIN

This will allow users to run CGI scripts out of their /home/user/public_html/cgi-bin directory. Their scripts can be accessed through their user directories.

Example: http://www.slackware.com/~pat/cgi-bin/webform.pl

Setup CGI-BIN as described above.

Edit /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-userdir.conf - Here is what you care about, change/uncomment the following lines as necessary:

vi /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-userdir.conf

  <Directory "/home/*/public_html/cgi-bin">
    Options ExecCGI
    SetHandler cgi-script
  </Directory>

Restart Apache

/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd restart

Enable PHP

Virtual Hosts

Edit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf - Here is what you care about, change/uncomment the following lines as necessary:

vi /etc/httpd/httpd.conf

  Include /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

Edit /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf - Here is what you care about, add one of these entries for each virtual host:

vi /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

  <VirtualHost *:80>
      ServerAdmin webmaster@www.server1.com
      DocumentRoot "/home/server1/public_html/"
      ServerName server1.com
      ServerAlias www.server1.com
      ErrorLog "/var/log/httpd/server1.com-error.log"
      CustomLog "/var/log/httpd/server1.com-access.log" common
  </VirtualHost>
  
    <VirtualHost *:80>
      ServerAdmin webmaster@www.server2.com
      DocumentRoot "/home/server2/public_html/"
      ServerName server2.com
      ServerAlias www.server2.com
      ErrorLog "/var/log/httpd/server2.com-error.log"
      CustomLog "/var/log/httpd/server2.com-access.log" common
  </VirtualHost>

Restart Apache

/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd restart

NOTE: I run my vhosts as users so, the document roots are under /home/user directories. You do not have to do this. You can put the document roots anywhere you like.

Example:

/srv/www/htdocs/server1
/srv/www/htdocs/server2

NOTE 2: These do not affect your default webserver setting in /etc/httpd/httpd.conf. That web server instance will still work and be the default if a plain IP in used as the URL.

Vhosts with individual CGI-BIN directories

If you have virtual hosts that need CGI (or need CGI in their own directory) you can do it like this:

Edit /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf - Add one of these entries for each vhost that needs unique cgi-bin directories:

vi /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

  <Directory /home/server1/public_html/cgi-bin/>
      Options ExecCGI
      SetHandler cgi-script
  </Directory>

Restart Apache

/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd restart

HINT: I usually put these with their respective <VirtualHost *:80> entries.

NOTE: Change the “/home/server1/public_html/cgi-bin/” to the correct directory location.

HTTPS / SSL

to be added

SNI HTTPS / SSL (Name based https)

to be added

Sources

 howtos:network_services:setup_apache ()