Apache
Apache
Deploying and configuring the Apache Web server in a Bioinformatics laboratory.
Contents
Introductory reading
Contents
Installation notes
Installation notes (status: 2007).
Apache is an open-source Web server, with a very high level of community support and the tool of choice for most situations.
- Download
- 1. navigate to the Apache HTTP server download page. Find the link to the appropriate download package for the recomended current realease (2.2.8 as of this writing).
- 2. open a terminal session, navigate to your download directory and type the usual (remember to use the tab key for filename completion :-):
gunzip httpd-2.2.8.tar.gz tar -xvf httpd-2.2.8.tar cd httpd-2.2.8
- Compile
Simply type
<bash> $ ./configure </bash>
Configure then runs pages of analyses that determine how to setup the Makefile. Next, type <bash> $ make $ sudo make install $ make clean </bash>
That's it.
- Test
After installing the software you need to start the httpd daemon. This does not happen automatically. The daemon is the actual Web-server: it will keep on running in the background, listen to incoming requests and respond appropriately. Type:
<bash> $ sudo /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start </bash>
then open a Web browser and type the following into the URL field:
<text> http://localhost/ </text>
The browser should then display the text:
It works!
That should be all. If you don't need the server running, you can always type:
<bash> $ sudo /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl stop
- on Ubuntu/Debian systems apache is configured by default to start when the OS starts. The following commands can be used:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart (useful when checking if configuration edits have taken effect) </bash>
Exercises
Task:
Serve a local file to your browser.
Solution: serving a local file
Serving the local file ~/example.html
via the web server.
- Make sure your apache Web server is installed and running.
- Create a subdirectory under your http root directory and copy your example file into that directory. For example in a standard installation, you would type:
$ cd /usr/local/apache2/htdocs
$ mkdir test
$ cp ~/example.html test
- Finally, type the URL into your browser: you can either use the IP address or name of your machine (you can get that by typing
ifconfig
) or you can serve the file locally using the IP address 127.0.0.1 (think about what the difference is between the two options.)
Thus the URL could be something like:
http://127.0.0.1/test/example.html
Further reading and resources