CEENet Network Technology Workshop; Budapest 1996

6^th CEENet Network Technology Workshop; Budapest, Hungary, August, 2000

Exercise with the Apache v.1.3 WWW Server on the Linux

1. Start Linux OS on Your computer.

restart computer. On LILO prompt first press <TAB> and then write linux

2. Preparations for Apache installation.

start Terminal application by clicking on the appropriate icon on the desktop.

go to your working directory by typing in the following command:

cd /home/is_serv1

examine the content of your working directory by typing in the following commands (normally you would create working directories):

pwd

ls -l

3. Find the Apache archive, download it and unpack.

in the real situation you will have to find a software on the net (http://www.apache.org). Here, it is available at http://www.ceenet.ceu.hu/T2/index_lab.html

start Netscape browser by clicking on the appropriate icon on the desktop.

go to http://www.ceenet.ceu.hu/T2/index_lab.html find the Apache distribution file and download it to the /home/is_serv1/source directory.

go to your terminal window. Go to the source directory by typing cd /home/is_serv1/source

unpack the archive by typing:

gunzip apache_1.3.12.tar.gz

tar –xvf apache_1.3.12.tar

go to the apache_1.3.12 directory by typing cd apache_1.3.12

install Apache server by typing:

./configure --prefix=/home/is_serv1/serv --with-port=80

make

make install

go to the server's home directory by typing cd /home/is_serv1/serv

check the result with the ls –al. Examine the directories and files that have just been created. It should look like:

[is_serv1@test1 serv]$ ls -al

total 48

drwxr-xr-x 12 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 .

drwxrwxr-x 7 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 18 20:48 ..

drwxr-xr-x 2 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 bin

drwxr-xr-x 2 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 cgi-bin

drwxr-xr-x 2 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 conf

drwxr-xr-x 3 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 htdocs

drwxr-xr-x 3 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 icons

drwxr-xr-x 3 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 include

drwxr-xr-x 2 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 libexec

drwxr-xr-x 2 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 logs

drwxr-xr-x 4 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 man

drwxr-xr-x 2 is_serv1 is_serv1 4096 Aug 21 02:39 proxy

4. Configure the server (necessary directives)

There is a nice on-line documentation about Apache configuration. Use your Netscape browser and go to the URL: http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/directives.html (whole documentation is available at http://www.apache.org/docs/.

change the directory to your server configuration directory (/home/is_serv1/serv/conf) by typing: cd conf

check (using more command or joe editor) the available configuration files.

edit the httpd.conf by typing joe httpd.conf

change the line:

ServerAdmin you@your.address

to (use your e-mail address at bush.ceenet.ceu.hu):

ServerAdmin your_user_name@bush.ceenet.ceu.hu

observe that other important parameters have been already set correctly:

ServerType standalone

Port 80

ServerRoot /home/is_serv1/serv

observe values of ErrorLog, CustomLog and PidFile

change the lines:

#ServerName pcxx

#AddType text/html .shtml

#AddHandler server-parsed .shtml

accordingly to lines (instead of pcxx real hostname will be used):

ServerName pcxx.ceenet.ceu.hu

AddType text/html .shtml

AddHandler server-parsed .shtml

observe that other important parameters have been already set correctly:

DocumentRoot /home/is_serv1/serv/htdocs

UserDir public_html

DirectoryIndex index.html

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /home/is_serv1/serv/cgi-bin/

Alias /icons/ /home/is_serv1/serv/icons/

be sure that Root Directory has the setting that looks like (you should add Includes option, and change AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All):

Options Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks

AllowOverride All

</Directory>

5. Start, stop and restart the server.

check configuration by typing: /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/apachectl configtest

start the server by typing: /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/apachectl start

see if it is running by typing ps -ef | grep httpd. You should get something like this:

[root@test1 serv]# ps -ef | grep httpd

root 9740 1 0 03:46 ? 00:00:00 /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/httpd

nobody 9741 9740 0 03:46 ? 00:00:00 /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/httpd

nobody 9742 9740 0 03:46 ? 00:00:00 /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/httpd

nobody 9743 9740 0 03:46 ? 00:00:00 /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/httpd

nobody 9744 9740 0 03:46 ? 00:00:00 /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/httpd

nobody 9745 9740 0 03:46 ? 00:00:00 /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/httpd

nobody 9746 9740 0 03:46 ? 00:00:00 /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/httpd

nobody 9747 9740 0 03:46 ? 00:00:00 /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/httpd

nobody 9748 9740 0 03:46 ? 00:00:00 /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/httpd

use the Netscape browser and go to the first page of your server. URL is: http://pcxx.ceenet.ceu.hu/

look for the httpd.pid file (more /home/is_serv1/serv/logs/httpd.pid). Use the stored number (pid) to stop the sever by typing: kill –TERM pid
(you can also stop the server by the following command: /home/is_serv1/serv/bin/apachectl stop)

observe that all httpd processes have gone (use ps command as instructed before). Start httpd again (as instructed before).

6. Modify the home (welcome) page of your server.

use cd command to go to the /home/is_serv1/serv/htdocs directory and prepare simple index.html file.

In the real life you should now give the Read/Write permission to the user or a group that will author the files. This should be done ONLY for htdocs directory!

7. Add server side include.

use joe editor to create first.shtml file (it should be in htdocs directory ) that looks like this:

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>Welcome</TITLE>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

<H2>Welcome to the

</H2>

<HR>

This server is running just for learning purposes.

<BR>

Today is:  or <BR>

Have a nice day !

<BR>

<HR>

<I>

Last time changed on:

</I>

</BODY>

</HTML>

open URL: http://pcxx.ceenet.ceu.hu/first.shtml in your Netscape browser and examine the result.

8. Try to work with the authentication.

try to disable viewing the files in your DocumentRoot directory (/home/is_serv1/serv/htdocs) for the clients on the ceenet.ceu.hu domain. Place the appropriate directives (see the lectures slides!) in the .htaccess file in the /home/is_serv1/serv/htdocs/. You can also make these changes using httpd.conf file (in that case you will have to restart the server).

ask others in lab to try to browse pages from your server. Observe results. Stop your server and look into the access and error file in the /home/is_serv1/serv/logs directory. Restart your server.

For the exeperienced students: using the lecture slides try to work with the user/password authetication. Generate a user and allow (only) him to browse your files. Try to combine both methods (by host/domain and by password).

9. CGI scripts.

go to your servers CGI script directory by typing cd /home/is_serv1/serv/cgi-bin

you have two scripts there: printenv and test-cgi. Have a look at the scripts (examine actual code). To give the server posibility to execute them you have to change the privileges to 755 (chmod 755 *).

try to execute both programs (printenv and test-cgi) by opening in your Netscape browser URL:
http://pcxx.ceenet.ceu.hu/cgi-bin/printenv
http://pcxx.ceenet.ceu.hu/cgi-bin/test-cgi

create the finger script using the following code (start editor with command joe finger and type in the following commands):

#!/bin/sh

echo Content-type: text/html

echo

cat << EOM

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>Finger Gateway</TITLE>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

EOM

if [ x = x$QUERY_STRING ]; then

cat << EOM

<H1>Finger Gateway</H1>

This is a gateway to "finger". Type a user@host

combination in your browser's search dialog.<P>

EOM

else

echo \<PRE\>

z=`echo $QUERY_STRING | sed 's/%40/@/'`

/usr/bin/finger -l "$z"

echo \</PRE\>

cat << EOM

</BODY>

</HTML>

EOM

set execute permission for finger script by typing chmod 755 finger

with your Netscape browser open the URL http://pcxx.ceenet.ceu.hu/cgi-bin/finger

try to finger „miro@bush.ceenet.ceu.hu”.

10. Virtual servers.

your PC is registered in DNS with alias hostname wwwxx.ceenet.ceu.hu! Try to access your web server using the alias hostname.

create another document directory httpd2 by typing the following commands:

cd /home/is_serv1/serv

mkdir htdocs2

using the lecture slides on virtual servers try to setup two web servers wwwxx.ceenet.ceu.hu and pcxx.ceenet.ceu.hu!. One with the starting page (DocumentRoot) in directory httpd and other with the starting page (DocumentRoot) in directory httpd2. IP address of your PC is written on the terminal.

Thank you, Miroslav Milinovic and Dubravko Penezic