Re: installing apache 2.4 on macosx Lion

[Guillaume Meurice <guillaume.meurice@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Mark,

many thanks !! 
Effectively, I was trying to keep one installation of Apache but it's very confusing.

Following your recommandation, I'll get my custom builf of apache / PHP.

I've also check the system.log and apache error_log and finnaly managed to solve one of the problem I had (activating apache from system prefs. pane.

Again, Thanks for your pieces of advices.

Best.

--

Guillaume

2012/3/28 Mark Montague <mark@xxxxxxxxxxx>

On March 28, 2012 4:49 , Guillaume Meurice <guillaume.meurice@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

but now, I can't launch apache from the syst.pref. > shared > web sharing panels.

In my opinion, it is much easier to leave everything Apple provides alone and install your custom build of Apache HTTP Server in a location where all of the files (binaries, configuration files, log files) are in completely different places than where Apple puts their copies.  This prevents any conflicts between your stuff and Apple's stuff, and eliminates the need to do a lot of extra work to get your stuff to work correctly with Apple's management tools.  It can be difficult to get your stuff to work with Apple's management tools because this is not something that Apple has intended, and they do not provide support or even good documentation for this.  I recommend managing your custom build of Apache HTTP Server from the command line, and not from Apple's GUIs.

Use Console.app to check Apple's special log files to find out why you were unable to start httpd.  Also check the httpd error log files, wherever you have configured httpd to put them.  Alternatively, start httpd from the command line using "apachectl" or by starting it manually.  Running "httpd -t" will do a check of your configuration files and will report any problems.

More over, since the files under /etc/apache2/ seems not to have been modified by the newly installation, I was wondering if they still remains useful for configuring apache ?

Installing httpd will not normally destroy old configuration files; this is desired behavior.

However, there are a number of differences between directives for httpd 2.2 and httpd 2.4, and you will very likely need to change some directives in your httpd 2.2 configuration files in order to get your configuration to work with httpd 2.4.  For details, see https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/upgrading.html

To find out where your custom httpd is looking for its configuration files, run "httpd -V" and examine the value of SERVER_CONFIG_FILE.  If the value does not begin with a / then prepend the value of HTTPD_ROOT to it.

Last question : is there any option to tell apache which PHP to use ?

Yes, you will need to build a different version of mod_php for each version of PHP you want to use.  You then control which version of PHP gets used by specifying the path to the corresponding version of mod_php via the LoadModule directive.

For example, to load the default version of PHP shipped by Apple:

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

(this loads libphp5.so from /usr/libexec/apache2/libphp5.so).

If you compile PHP 5.4.0, including mod_php, and you've installed this version of mod_php in /opt/mystuff/apache-httpd/libexec/libphp5.so, then you can load it using the following directive:

LoadModule php5_module /opt/mystuff/apache-httpd/libexec/libphp5.so


I hope this helps.

--
 Mark Montague
 mark@xxxxxxxxxxx