Installing the HTTP server

Apache is a widely used HTTP server.

Install:

emerge apache
    

The daemon is /usr/sbin/httpd. The deamon control script is /usr/sbin/apache2ctl.

You can make a first test as follows:

• Get root permissions: su and give root password.
• Start the HTTP daemon: /usr/sbin/apache2ctl start.
• Connect to your machine with a web browser. You'll get a first web page with an Apache logo and other stuff.

Add Apache 2 to startup:

rc-update add apache2 default
    

Configuring the HTTP server

Configuration data is found in /etc/apache2/conf/, especially in apache2.conf or commonapache2.conf. Check this with apache2ctl -V.

Server domain name

Edit the configuration file /etc/apache2/conf/apache2.conf and uncomment the line

#ServerName localhost
    

This will keep away the annoying startup/shutdown message: [...] Could not determine the server's fully qualified domain name [...].

Startup HTML file

The httpd.conf configuration file specifies the HTTP root directory with the directive DocumentRoot. Default value is /var/www/localhost/htdocs.

Place your index.html file in that directory.
If you intend to run Unix commands from within index.html, be sure to chmod 755 index.html.

Link to another directory

You can link from your startup index.html to another file in another directory branch. However, you then need to tell Apache he has to grant access to this new directory.

Edit /etc/apache2/conf/apache2.conf or .../commonapache2.conf (su as root). Find the line <IfModule mod_alias.c>. After this line, add the lines

    Alias /directoryName/ "yourDirectoryLocation/"

    <Directory "yourDirectoryLocation">
        Options Indexes FollowSymlinks MultiViews +ExecCGI
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
   

Restart the HTTP deamon: /usr/sbin/apache2ctl restart.

/usr/sbin/apache2ctl restart
    

With this, you can link into yourDirectoryLocation from the startup index.html. As an example, you can write:

<A href="directoryName/index.html"[ Surf on to a special page ]</A>
   

Make sure you also grant read access of your directories and files on the Unix file system to the web browser user...

Password-protected directory

You can password-protect a directory.

Edit /etc/apache2/conf/apache2.conf or .../commonapache2.conf (su as root). Add the definition:

    <Directory "yourDirectoryLocation">
        Options Indexes FollowSymlinks MultiViews +ExecCGI
        AuthType Basic
        AuthName "Restricted Files"
        AuthUserFile /var/www/localhost/passwd/passwords
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
        Require user pascal     
    </Directory>
   

Build the password file.

mkdir /var/www/localhost/passwd
htpasswd2 -c /var/www/localhost/passwd/passwords username
    

Restart the HTTP deamon: /usr/sbin/apache2ctl restart.

/usr/sbin/apache2ctl restart
    

Try to access the password-protected pages with a web browser.