Working with the Apache 1.3 Web Server

Title	Working with the Apache 1.3 Web Server
Author	Hughes Technologies
Date	10 Feb 1999
Specifics	mSQL 2.0 or greater, Apache 1.3 or greater
Abstract	A tutorial covering the installation and configuration of the Apache 1.3 series web servers to with with W3-mSQL enhanced pages and the W3-Auth authentication scheme.

Introduction

At the time of writing, the Apache web server is the most commonly used web server on the Internet. The current release series of Apache is the 1.3 series and it is proving to be a very flexible and capable piece of software. This tutorial explains how to install the apache software and configure it to work with W3-mSQL. It covers

• Unpacking the Apache software distribution
• Configuring and compiling the Apache software under UNIX
• Installing the Apache software
• Modifying the Apache run-time configuration to support W3-mSQL enhanced pages.

Building Apache 1.3

The Apache software can be downloaded freely off the internet from www.apache.org or one of the many mirror sites around the world. From the web site, download the software onto your UNIX machine. In this example we are using the 1.3.4 release of apache. To unpack the software distribution, simply type

• gunzip apache_1.3.4.tar.gz
• tar -xvf apache_1.3.4.tar

This will create a directory called 'apache_1.3.4' in the current directory. You must 'cd' into that directory to start eh configuration and build stage of this tutorial. From inside the directory type the following

• ./configure

The configure script will check your system and create a default configuration for the apache software. If you wish to use the authentication features provided by W3-mSQL then the default configuration is not what you want. You will need to modify this configuration using the steps below.

• cd src
• edit the 'Configuration' file (note the capital 'C')
• modify the EXTRA_CFLAGS entry (line 54 in our example) and set it to -DSECURITY_HOLE_PASS_AUTHORIZATION
• run './Configure' in the src directory (capital 'C')

This will add "EXTRA_CFLAGS= -DSECURITY_HOLE_PASS_AUTHORIZATION" to all the Makefiles used to build the software. At this point, while you are still in the src directory, you can compile by running 'make'.

Configuring Apache 1.3

Once the software has been installed, the configuration files must be edited to handle automatic execution of W3-mSQL enhanced web pages. The relevant configuration information is maintained in the srm.conf file, usually located in the /etc directory of the apache installation tree. To ensure that W3-mSQL enhanced pages can be used as directory index pages, modify the DirectoryIndex entry and add index.msql as a valid index page option.

	DirectoryIndex index.html index.msql

The next stage is to tell apache that any file ending in .msql is a W3-mSQL enhanced page. Once it knows this, you no longer need to reference /cgi-bin/w3-msql when accessing a page. The web server will do that for you if the file has a .msql suffix. To do this add the following to srm.conf.

	AddType application/msql .msql
	Action application/msql /cgi-bin/w3-msql

That's all there is to it. The AddType entry associates a MIME type to files ending with a .msql suffix. The Action line tells apache that the files of that MIME type are to be passed to the /cgi-bin/w3-msql program rather than being returned to the browser directly.

Copyright © 2001, Hughes Technologies Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Last updated 18 Jan 2002.