Compiling and Installing - Apache HTTP Server Version 2.4








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Apache HTTP Server Version 2.4



Apache > HTTP Server > Documentation > Version 2.4Compiling and Installing


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    The Apache HTTP Server is released as source code. This document
    covers building and installing the server from source on Unix and
    Unix-like systems. For Windows, see Using Apache HTTP Server with Microsoft
    Windows and Compiling Apache httpd for Microsoft
    Windows. For other platforms, see the platform documentation.

    If you install httpd from a distribution package (RPM, DEB, etc.),
    configuration layout and defaults may differ from what is described here.
    See third-party packages below, and consult your
    distribution's documentation for platform-specific details.

    If you are upgrading from one minor version to the next (for
    example, 2.4.66 to 2.4.67), please skip down to the upgrading section.


 Overview for the
    impatient
 Requirements
 Download
 Extract
 Configuring the source tree
 Build
 Install
 Customize
 Test
 Upgrading
 Third-party packages
See alsoConfigure the source treeStarting Apache httpdStopping and Restarting


Overview for the
    impatient ¶

    
      
      
        Download

        Download the latest release from https://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi
        
      

      
        Extract

        $ tar xzf httpd-NN.tar.gz
$ cd httpd-NN

      

      
        Configure

        $ ./configure --prefix=PREFIX
        
      

      
        Compile

        $ make 
      

      
        Install

        $ make install 
      

      
        Customize

        $ vi PREFIX/conf/httpd.conf 
      

      
        Test

        $ PREFIX/bin/apachectl -k start
        
      
    

        NN must be replaced with the current version
        number, and PREFIX must be replaced with the
        filesystem path under which the server should be installed. If
        PREFIX is not specified, it defaults to
        /usr/local/apache2.

        Each section of the compilation and installation process is
        described in more detail below, beginning with the requirements
        for compiling and installing Apache httpd.



Requirements ¶

    The following requirements exist for building and running Apache httpd:

    
      APR and APR-Util
      Make sure you have APR and APR-Util already installed on
      your system. If you don't, or prefer to not use the system-provided
      versions, download the latest versions of both APR and APR-Util
      from Apache APR, unpack
      them into /httpd_source_tree_root/srclib/apr and /httpd_source_tree_root/srclib/apr-util
      (be sure the directory names do not have version numbers; for example,
      the APR distribution must be under /httpd_source_tree_root/srclib/apr/) and use
      ./configure's --with-included-apr
      option. On some platforms, you may have to install the
      corresponding -dev packages to allow httpd to build
      against your installed copy of APR and APR-Util.

      Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions Library (PCRE2)
      This library is required but not bundled with httpd.
      Download the source code from https://github.com/PCRE2Project/pcre2
      or install it from your system's package manager. If your build system can't find
      the pcre2-config script installed by the PCRE2 build,
      point to it using the --with-pcre parameter. On some platforms,
      you may have to install the corresponding -dev
      package (e.g. libpcre2-dev or pcre2-devel)
      to allow httpd to build against your installed copy of PCRE2.

      Disk Space
      Make sure you have at least 200 MB of temporary free disk
      space available. After installation the server occupies
      approximately 50 MB of disk space. The actual disk space
      requirements will vary considerably based on your chosen
      configuration options, any third-party modules, and, of course,
      the size of the web site or sites that you have on the server.

      ANSI-C Compiler and Build System
      Make sure you have an ANSI-C compiler installed. The GNU C
      compiler (GCC) from the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
      is recommended. If you don't have GCC
      then at least make sure your vendor's compiler is ANSI
      compliant. In addition, your PATH must contain
      basic build tools such as make.

      Accurate time keeping
      HTTP protocol headers use timestamps, so your system clock
      must be accurate. Most Linux distributions enable
      systemd-timesyncd or chrony by
      default. Verify that time synchronization is active on your
      system before running a production server.

      Perl 5
      [OPTIONAL]
      For some of the support scripts like apxs or dbmmanage (which are
      written in Perl) the Perl 5 interpreter is required.
      If no Perl 5 interpreter is found by the
      configure script, you will not be able to use
      the affected support scripts. Of course, you will still be able to
      build and use Apache httpd.
    


Download ¶

    Download the source tarball from the Apache HTTP Server
    download site.

    After downloading, it is important to verify that you have a
    complete and unmodified version of the Apache HTTP Server. This
    can be accomplished by testing the downloaded tarball against the
    PGP signature. Details on how to do this are available on the
    verification
    page.



Extract ¶

    Extract the source from the Apache HTTP Server tarball:

$ tar xzf httpd-NN.tar.gz


    This will create a new directory under the current directory
    containing the source code for the distribution. You should
    cd into that directory before proceeding with
    compiling the server.


Configuring the source tree ¶

    The next step is to configure the httpd source tree for your
    particular platform and personal requirements. This is done using
    the script configure included in
    the root directory of the distribution. (Developers downloading
    an unreleased version of the httpd source tree will need to have
    autoconf and libtool installed and will
    need to run buildconf before proceeding with the next
    steps. This is not necessary for official releases.)

    To configure the source tree using all the default options,
    type ./configure. To change the default
    options, configure accepts a variety of variables
    and command line options.

    The most important option is the location --prefix
    where httpd is to be installed later, because httpd has to be
    configured for this location to work correctly. More fine-tuned
    control of the location of files is possible with additional configure
    options.

    Also at this point, you can specify which features you
    want included in httpd by enabling and disabling modules. httpd comes with a wide range of modules
    included by default. They will be compiled as
    shared objects (DSOs) which can be loaded
    or unloaded at runtime.
    You can also choose to compile modules statically by using the option
    --enable-module=static.

    Additional modules are enabled using the
    --enable-module option, where
    module is the name of the module with the
    mod_ string removed and with any underscore converted
    to a dash. Similarly, you can disable modules with the
    --disable-module option. Be careful when
    using these options, since configure cannot warn you
    if the module you specify does not exist; it will ignore the option.

    In addition, it is sometimes necessary to provide the
    configure script with extra information about the
    location of your compiler, libraries, or header files. This is
    done by passing either environment variables or command line
    options to configure. For more information, see the
    configure manual page. Or invoke
    configure using the --help option.

    For a short impression of what possibilities you have, here
    is a typical example which compiles httpd for the installation
    tree /sw/pkg/apache with a particular compiler and flags
    plus the two additional modules mod_ldap and
    mod_lua:

$ CC="pgcc" CFLAGS="-O2" \
  ./configure --prefix=/sw/pkg/apache \
  --enable-ldap=shared \
  --enable-lua=shared


    When configure is run it will take several minutes to
    test for the availability of features on your system and build
    Makefiles which will later be used to compile the server.

    Details on all the different configure options are
    available on the configure manual page.


Build ¶

    Now you can build the various parts which form the httpd
    package by running:

$ make


    Please be patient here, since a base configuration takes
    several minutes to compile and the time will vary widely
    depending on your hardware and the number of modules that you
    have enabled.


Install ¶

    Now it's time to install the package under the configured
    installation PREFIX (see --prefix option
    above) by running:

$ make install


    This step will typically require root privileges, since
    PREFIX is usually a directory with restricted write
    permissions.

    If you are upgrading, the installation will not overwrite
    your configuration files or documents.


Customize ¶

    Next, you can customize your Apache HTTP Server by editing
    the configuration files under
    PREFIX/conf/.

$ vi PREFIX/conf/httpd.conf


    Have a look at the httpd manual under
    PREFIX/docs/manual/ or consult https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/ for the most recent
    version of this manual and a complete reference of available configuration directives.


Test ¶

    Now you can start your Apache HTTP Server by immediately running:

$ PREFIX/bin/apachectl -k start


    You should then be able to request your first document
    via the URL http://localhost/. The web page you see is located
    under the DocumentRoot,
    which will usually be PREFIX/htdocs/.
    Then stop the server again by
    running:

$ PREFIX/bin/apachectl -k stop



Upgrading ¶

    The first step in upgrading is to read the release announcement
    and the file CHANGES in the source distribution to
    find any changes that may affect your site. When changing between
    major releases (for example, from 2.4 to 2.6),
    there will likely be major differences in the compile-time and
    run-time configuration that will require manual adjustments. All
    modules will also need to be upgraded to accommodate changes in the
    module API.

    Upgrading from one minor version to the next (for example, from
    2.4.66 to 2.4.67) is easier. The make install
    process will not overwrite any of your existing documents, log
    files, or configuration files. In addition, the developers make
    every effort to avoid incompatible changes in the
    configure options, run-time configuration, or the
    module API between minor versions. In most cases you should be able to
    use an identical configure command line, an identical
    configuration file, and all of your modules should continue to
    work.

    To upgrade across minor versions, start by finding the file
    config.nice in the build directory of
    your installed server or at the root of the source tree for your
    old install. This will contain the exact
    configure command line that you used to
    configure the source tree. Then to upgrade from one version to
    the next, you need only copy the config.nice file to
    the source tree of the new version, edit it to make any desired
    changes, and then run:

    $ ./config.nice
$ make
$ make install
$ PREFIX/bin/apachectl -k graceful-stop
$ PREFIX/bin/apachectl -k start


    You should always test any new version in your
    environment before putting it into production. For example, you
    can install and run the new version along side the old one by
    using a different --prefix and a
    different port (by adjusting the Listen directive) to test for any
    incompatibilities before doing the final upgrade.

    You can pass additional arguments to config.nice,
    which will be appended to your original configure
    options:

    $ ./config.nice --prefix=/home/test/apache --with-port=90



Third-party packages ¶

    Many operating systems ship pre-built Apache httpd packages.
    These are convenient for getting started quickly, but they often
    differ from a source build in configuration file layout,
    compiled-in modules, and default paths. The documentation on this
    site describes the server as built from source; if you are using a
    platform package, consult your distribution's documentation for
    platform-specific details.

    Some common examples:

    
    Fedora / CentOS / Red Hat Enterprise Linux
    
    sudo dnf install httpd
sudo systemctl start httpd

    See the
    Fedora project's documentation for configuration layout and
    platform-specific notes.
    

    Ubuntu / Debian
    
sudo apt install apache2
sudo systemctl start apache2

    See Ubuntu's
    documentation for configuration layout and
    platform-specific notes.
    
    

    Our software license not only permits, but encourages, this kind
    of redistribution. However, it does result in a situation where the
    configuration layout and defaults on your installation of the server
    may differ from what is stated in the documentation. A description
    of these third-party distributions is available in the HTTP
    Server wiki.

    Don't see your favorite platform mentioned
    here? Come help us
    improve this doc.



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