Getting the Goods

Most sites that run Apache are based on Unix-like operating systems such as Linux or FreeBSD, although Apache is also available for the Windows platforms. You will need to be running an Apache web server, preferably the newest stable release available (1.3.12 at the time of writing) to make use of mod_perl, although there are plug-ins similar to mod_perl for other web servers (nsapi_perl for Netscape servers, or the commercial PerlEx by ActiveState for O'Reilly, Microsoft, and Netscape servers).

On Apache under a Unix-like operating system, you can download the source for mod_perl (current version is 1.22). Alternatively, if you are familiar with the CPAN.pm module the command install Bundle::Apache will install mod_perl and several related Perl modules that you may or may not wish to use. You can also install mod_perl manually, from the source link above, and then type perldoc Bundle::Apache to view a list of related modules that you can retrieve and install if you wish.

Apache is also available for Windows, but many Windows Perl coders use ActiveState's popular port, ActivePerl. This is a problem for us here, because mod_perl will not (yet) work under Windows with ActivePerl. There is hope -- you can freely download a fully bundled set of binaries containing Apache, mod_perl, and an alternate port of Perl all for Windows 95/98/NT.

While Windows users have downloaded binaries, many Unix-like users have downloaded source code. The vagaries of compiling anything under a Unix environment are complex, but in a typical scenario you can rely on the built-in compilation scripts included with Apache and mod_perl. The compilation procedure involves building of mod_perl first, which then in turn builds the Apache binaries -- the end result will be a new Apache httpd binary. The installation summary below is reproduced from Stas Bekman's thorough "mod_perl Guide" -- you can skip the first five lines if you've already downloaded and unpacked the Apache and mod_perl sources (which is what these lines do).

  % cd /usr/src
% lwp-download  http://www.apache.org/dist/apache_x.x.x.tar.gz
% lwp-download http://perl.apache.org/dist/mod_perl-x.xx.tar.gz
% tar xzvf apache_x.x.x.tar.gz
% tar xzvf mod_perl-x.xx.tar.gz
% cd mod_perl-x.xx
% perl Makefile.PL APACHE_SRC=../apache_x.x.x/src \
DO_HTTPD=1 USE_APACI=1 EVERYTHING=1
% make && make test && make install
% cd ../apache_x.x.x
% make install

As illustrated, you simply need to unpack the Apache and mod_perl sources into respective subdirectories, then change into the mod_perl source directory and execute the "perl Makefile.PL" command illustrated above. This tells the compiler where to find the Apache sources and what options to build in -- the above routine defaults to "everything" which is satisfactory for most uses and certainly a first time experience. Finally, the sources are all built while your computer churns and smokes for a few minutes, and installed into place, typically /usr/local/apache.

Assuming a /usr/local/apache destination, the new httpd (the binary for the Apache server) will be found in /usr/local/apache/bin.

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