Lab L-3 Installing and Configuring Apache Web Server

Apache is an open source webserver that has been around for years and is used both on Linux and Windows boxes throughout the world. It is simple, straightforward, and robust without all the bells and whistles of Windows Internet Information Services.

 

You can install a simple HTTP server, or you can get really fancy and allow it to host dynamic webpages, databases, etc. The sky is almost the limit with Apache!

 

We installed Apache in our initial installation of

 

Do this

It’ll look like this
  1. Log into root using your terminal.
  2. Now we’re going to install all the Apache Packets. This gives you the option of using a number of packets to start daemons. A daemon is a process that runs all the time and provides a service. For example the http daemon provides web page serving.
  3. To ensure that you have Apache installed type yum install apr*. This will install all the apache resources.
  4. Now type yum install httpd*
  5. It may tell you that it is already installed and latest version so there’s nothing to do. If only it said “Have a nice day” it would be perfect.

 

installing apr

 
  1. Before you do anything, we’ll use OpenOffice to create websites, so let’s make sure it’s installed. It should be under ApplicationsàOffice.
  2. If you do not have OpenOffice installed, open Terminal and log into root.
  3. Type yum groupinstall Office.

  1. Make sure you have static IP addresses on  all computers in your network.
  2. To assign a static IP in Linux:
    1. Go into SystemàAdministrationàNetwork
    2. Type in your root password
    3. You’ll see something like the right picture img 1.
    4. Double click eth0
    5. Select the following

4 Activate device when network starts

4 Statically set IP Address settings

    1. Set address as indicated from your subnet. This will be the address of your webserver.
    2. Click OK
    3. Now in Devices click DNS
    4. Type in the addresses of two of your Windows servers for DNS
    5. Close, say yes you want to save. Sometimes the interface then disappears from the active settings. Eeek!
    6. Now restart the network service.
    7. Go to systemàAdministrationàService Configuration.
    8. Find network
    9. Restart
  1. Test your connection by pinging the other computers
  2. Log into root at terminal
  3. Send the ping command just like in Windows.
  4. To stop the ping type ctrl-c
  5. To set the ping to run only a certain number of ping packets type ping ipaddress –c x where x=number of pings. –c stands for count.
  6. At the prompt type man ping to learn more options you can use in ping.

4 Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

4 Choose YOUR two Windows Servers to be your DNS servers, and put THEIR IP addresses in for DNS, as well as the other two we had in already.

4 Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1

 

Screenshot-Ethernet Device

Screenshot-Network Configuration
  1. Let’s start the Apache Daemon. At # type /etc/init.d/httpd start
  2. It will say starting httpd:
  3. We want to configure Apache to start at startup. Use the command chkconfig --level 35 httpd on (this turned httpd…aka apache http server…on and tells it to turn on at boot, and sets the system level to 3 <non-graphics mode> and 5 <graphics mode>)
  4. Yay!

 

Note: You must have your proxy turned OFF on your machine or it won’t work. Yeah, fought with that for two days until I had a duh moment.

starting httpd

 

 

Questions

 

  1. What is a daemon?
  2. What is the name of the apache daemon?

 

  1. Where can you change your IP address?

 

  1. Why must a webserver have a static IP address?

 

  1. What is the IP address of your Linux server?

 

  1. What command would you use to send 5 pings with a packet size of 64k?

 

  1. What command do you send to set the graphics level to non-graphics mode, and graphics mode and make sure httpd starts at startup?

 

  1. What is the difference between groupinstall and install in Yum?