Getting, Installing, and Running Apache
by Rael Dornfest | Pages: 1, 2, 3

Using an RPM

Those of you running the RedHat Linux distribution may want to take advantage of RedHat's RPM ("RedHat Package Manager") system. Almost identical to a binary, an RPM is further customized to play nicely with other RPMs and provide a consistent interface to installing, updating, and removing binaries. I admit I'm not a great fan of packaged binaries. They often entail a loss of flexibility and clarity -- for instance, it's not readily apparent where the contents of some packages will end up. That said, for Linux newcomers or when installing a small standard component, RPMs are simple and reliable.

Bear in mind that an Apache RPM may already be installed on your system depending on how Linux was originally installed on your computer. To find out, at the shell prompt, type:

rpm -qa | grep apache

If you see something like apache-1.3.9xxx, an Apache RPM has already been installed and you can skip on to "Starting Apache".

If you don't have an Apache RPM, you must obtain one. RedHat 6.1 ships with apache-1.3.9-4.i386.rpm in the RedHat/RPMS directory on the installation CD. Or, point your Web browser at ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/current/i386/RedHat/RPMS or one of the many mirror sites and pick yourself up a copy. If you've not already done so, you'll need to become root. Navigate to the same directory as the .rpm file you obtained, and then type the following command, substituting the name of the .rpm you're using for apache-1.3.9-4.i386.rpm.

rpm -ivh apache-1.3.9-4.i386.rpm

RPM should grind away, displaying its progress with a primitive ####### progress bar. Barring any errors, you're done.

If you're interested in learning how to install Apache from scratch, read on. Or, if you're just using the RPM section of this tutorial, you can skip on to Starting Apache.

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