4. Setting up the Server

During the installtion of the apache RPM, several directories will be created on your system:

         /etc/httpd/conf            - configuration files
         /var/log/httpd             - log files
         /home/httpd/html           - where your HTML files will go
         /home/httpd/cgi-bin        - where CGI programs go
         /home/httpd/icons         - some icons used for directory indexing, etc.

A sample home page will be installed in /home/httpd/html, and several sample CGI programs will be installed in /home/httpd/cgi-bin.

Before starting up the server, you will want to take a look at some of the configuration files in /etc/httpd/conf. These include:

NOTE:Newer versions of Apache use a single configuration file. At the present time (10-18-99) Red Hat has NOT shipped a version in this format but plans to for future releases.

• access.conf: This file controls access to your web server. One of the things you might want to change here are the ``allow'' and ``deny'' lines, which restrict who can get web pages. By default, all hosts are allowed. You may, for instance, want to change this so that all hosts are allowed, except for one problem host:

          <Limit GET>
          order deny,allow
          allow from all
          deny from b1ff.eleet.com
          </Limit>
  

  This will prohibit the host b1ff.eleet.com from accessing the server, but allow all other hosts. Another example is to restrict access to only your own domain (for an internal web server):

          <Limit GET>
          order deny,allow
          deny from all
          allow from gizmonics.edu
          <Limit GET>
  

  This allows only hosts in the gizmonics.edu domain to access to server.
• httpd.conf: This is the main file for configuration information for your web server. Below are some of the entries you will need to modify to fit your site.

  The first things you will want to look through and modify for your web server will be the modules that are loaded. These are all based on your prefernce or need, a general rule is: If you don't know what it does, you probably don't need it. Read the documentation to learn more about each module, the features and problems of it and decide if you need it below is what this section looks like on my server, yours may vary.

          # Documentation for modules is in "/home/httpd/manual/mod" in HTML format.
  
          #LoadModule mmap_static_module modules/mod_mmap_static.so
          LoadModule env_module         modules/mod_env.so
          LoadModule config_log_module  modules/mod_log_config.so
          LoadModule agent_log_module   modules/mod_log_agent.so
          LoadModule referer_log_module modules/mod_log_referer.so
          LoadModule mime_magic_module  modules/mod_mime_magic.so
          LoadModule mime_module        modules/mod_mime.so
          LoadModule negotiation_module modules/mod_negotiation.so
          LoadModule status_module      modules/mod_status.so
          LoadModule info_module        modules/mod_info.so
          LoadModule includes_module    modules/mod_include.so
          LoadModule autoindex_module   modules/mod_autoindex.so
          LoadModule dir_module         modules/mod_dir.so
          LoadModule cgi_module         modules/mod_cgi.so
          LoadModule asis_module        modules/mod_asis.so
          LoadModule imap_module        modules/mod_imap.so
          LoadModule action_module      modules/mod_actions.so
          LoadModule speling_module     modules/mod_speling.so
          LoadModule userdir_module     modules/mod_userdir.so
          LoadModule proxy_module       modules/libproxy.so
          LoadModule alias_module       modules/mod_alias.so
          LoadModule rewrite_module     modules/mod_rewrite.so
          LoadModule access_module      modules/mod_access.so
          LoadModule auth_module        modules/mod_auth.so
          LoadModule anon_auth_module   modules/mod_auth_anon.so
          #LoadModule dbm_auth_module    modules/mod_auth_dbm.so
          LoadModule db_auth_module     modules/mod_auth_db.so
          LoadModule digest_module      modules/mod_digest.so
          #LoadModule cern_meta_module   modules/mod_cern_meta.so
          LoadModule expires_module     modules/mod_expires.so
          LoadModule headers_module     modules/mod_headers.so
          LoadModule usertrack_module   modules/mod_usertrack.so
          #LoadModule example_module     modules/mod_example.so
          #LoadModule unique_id_module   modules/mod_unique_id.so
          LoadModule setenvif_module    modules/mod_setenvif.so
  
          # Extra Modules
          #LoadModule php_module         modules/mod_php.so
          #LoadModule php3_module        modules/libphp3.so
          LoadModule perl_module        modules/libperl.so
  
          #  Reconstruction of the complete module list from all available modules
          #  (static and shared ones) to achieve correct module execution order.
          #  [WHENEVER YOU CHANGE THE LOADMODULE SECTION ABOVE UPDATE THIS, TOO]
          ClearModuleList
          #AddModule mod_mmap_static.c
          AddModule mod_env.c
          AddModule mod_log_config.c
          AddModule mod_log_agent.c
          AddModule mod_log_referer.c
          AddModule mod_mime_magic.c
          AddModule mod_mime.c
          AddModule mod_negotiation.c
          AddModule mod_status.c
          AddModule mod_info.c
          AddModule mod_include.c
          AddModule mod_autoindex.c
          AddModule mod_dir.c
          AddModule mod_cgi.c
          AddModule mod_asis.c
          AddModule mod_imap.c
          AddModule mod_actions.c
          AddModule mod_speling.c
          AddModule mod_userdir.c
          AddModule mod_proxy.c
          AddModule mod_alias.c
          AddModule mod_rewrite.c
          AddModule mod_access.c
          AddModule mod_auth.c
          AddModule mod_auth_anon.c
          #AddModule mod_auth_dbm.c
          AddModule mod_auth_db.c
          AddModule mod_digest.c
          #AddModule mod_cern_meta.c
          AddModule mod_expires.c
          AddModule mod_headers.c
          AddModule mod_usertrack.c
          #AddModule mod_example.c
          #AddModule mod_unique_id.c
          AddModule mod_so.c
          AddModule mod_setenvif.c
  
          # Extra Modules
          #AddModule mod_php.c
          #AddModule mod_php3.c
          AddModule mod_perl.c
  

  The apache web server can be run from either /etc/inetd.conf or as a standalone server. I recommend running it as a standalone for performance and resource reasons, however this is simply a matter of preference and need.

          ServerType           standalone
  

  Now you get to choose what port you want your web server to listen for connections on, port 80 is the standard port, you can however move it to another port if you would like, just remember to give the port number to people when giving out your website. Note: For ports < 1023 you will need to be root to start the server.

          Port 80
  

  It is probably a good idea to leave the web server on port 80.

  The HostnamesLookups feature is turned off by default, you can enable this by changing off to on on the line like the one below.

          HostnameLookups off
  

  This is off so that you will have to turn it on, it will reduce performance slightly as it looks up the host when it gets a connection, but will log the hostname of the client as opposed to just the ip of the client.

  The next thing you need to edit is the user and group the webserver it runs as, the default is user nobody and group nobody it is probably a good idea to leave it this way for security reasons. This can be changed to run as a user by changing the lines similar to the ones below.

          User nobody
          Group nobody
  

  One thing you'll need to edit will be the server admin.

          ServerAdmin     webmaster@spaceghost.com
  

  The server admin is going to be the person in charge of handling your webserver, typically it is a good idea to set this to webmaster@yourdomain.com, and then alias webmaster to the person responsiable in the /etc/aliases and then run the

          /usr/bin/newaliases
  

  The next thing you need to check will be the ServerRoot settings. This is the top of the directory tree under which the server's configuration, error, and log files are kept. NOTE! If you intend to place this on an NFS (or otherwise network) mounted filesystem then please read the LockFile documentation available at Apache

  The Default for Red Hat Linux systems are:

          ServerRoot "/etc/httpd"
  

  You dont really need to change this, as the Apache is compiled for this path, but you can recompile Apache and move it somewhere else.

  If you want to run ``virtual hosts'', this is where you'll set up that information. Virtual hosts are beyond the scope of this document - consult the Apache documentation at Apache for more on this.

• mime.types: You shouldn't change anything in here.
• srm.conf: This file contains information about directories, files, and file types on your server. Most of this can be left as is; however, if you want to support server-side includes on your server, you should uncomment some of the AddType lines, as indicated in the file's comments. Server-side includes are a potential security risk, so they are disabled by default.