Build and Install Apache (with DSO support)

The advantage to building Apache with support for dynamically loaded modules is that in the future, you can add functionality to your webserver by just compiling and installing modules, and restarting the webserver. If the features were compiled into Apache, you would need to rebuild Apache from scratch every time you wanted to add or update a module (like PHP). Your Apache binary is also smaller, which means more efficient memory usage.

The downside to dynamic modules is a slight performance hit compared to having the modules compiled in.

cd /usr/local/src/apache_1.3.33

./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local/apache \
--enable-shared=max \
--enable-module=rewrite \
--enable-module=so

make && make install

Build and Install PHP

This section has only been tested with PHP v4.x. If you are trying to build PHP 5.x, I do not have experience with this yet, and do not provide free support for you to get it working. Please note that there are many options which can be selected when compiling PHP. Some will have library dependencies, meaning certain software may need to be already installed on your server before you start building PHP. You can use the command

./configure --help | less

once you change into the PHP source directory. This will show you a list of all possible configuration switches. For more information on what these switches are, please check the PHP website documentation.

cd /usr/local/src/php-4.3.11

./configure \
--with-apxs=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs \
--disable-debug \
--enable-ftp \
--enable-inline-optimization \
--enable-magic-quotes \
--enable-mbstring \
--enable-mm=shared \
--enable-safe-mode \
--enable-track-vars \
--enable-trans-sid \
--enable-wddx=shared \
--enable-xml \
--with-dom \
--with-gd \
--with-gettext \
--with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \
--with-regex=system \
--with-xml \
--with-zlib-dir=/usr/lib

make && make install

cp php.ini-dist /usr/local/lib/php.ini

I like to keep my config files all together in

/etc

ln -s /usr/local/lib/php.ini /etc/php.ini

Then I can just open

/etc/php.ini

Recommended reading on securing your PHP installation is this article at SecurityFocus.com.

Edit the Apache Configuration File (

httpd.conf

I like to keep all my configuration files together in

/etc

/etc

ln -s /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd.conf

Now open

/etc/httpd.conf

Also recommended is the article on securing Apache.

To ensure your PHP files are properly interpreted, and not just downloaded as text files, remove the

#

If the AddType lines above don't exist, manually enter them (without the leading

#

AddType application/x-tar .tgz

or anyplace within the

httpd.conf

If you wish to use other/additional extensions/filetypes for your PHP scripts instead of just

.php

AddType

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .foo
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps .phtmls

An example: if you wanted every single HTML page to be parsed and processed like a PHP script, just add

.htm

.html

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .htm .html

There will be a bit of a performance loss if every single HTML page is being checked for PHP code even if it doesn't contain any. But if you want to use PHP but be "stealthy" about it, you can use this trick.

Add

index.php

index.php

DirectoryIndex index.php index.htm index.html

You can add anything else you want here too. If you want

foobar.baz

.baz

AddType

foobar.baz

DirectoryIndex

Start Apache

We want to set Apache up with a normal start/stop script in

/etc/rc.d/init.d

apachectl

ln -s /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl /etc/rc.d/init.d/apache

Then set up auto-start for runlevel 3 (where the server will go by default):

ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/apache /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S90apache

Then start the daemon:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/apache start

You can check that it's running properly by doing:

ps -ef

and look for the

httpd

processes.

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