Apache HTTP Server: compile and install

1. Steps to build httpd

Download	$ lynx http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi
Extract	$ gzip -d httpd-NN.tar.gz $ tar xvf httpd-NN.tar $ cd httpd-NN
Configure	$ ./configure --prefix=PREFIX
Compile	$ make
Install	$ make install
Customize	$ vi PREFIX/conf/httpd.conf
Test	$ PREFIX/bin/apachectl -k start

NN must be replaced with the current version number, PREFIX must be replaced with the filesystem path under which the server should be installed. If PREFIX is not specified, it defaults to /usr/local/apache2.

2. Problems 

Starters usually met problems that some required libraries are not found, like apr, apr-util and pcre.

configure: error: APR not found. Please read the documentation. 
configure: error: pcre-config for libpcre not found. PCRE is required and available from http://pcre.org/ 

Solution:

The solution is obvious that you should download and install these libraries, then continue to build Apache Http Server. 


Below is what Apache document says: ( which we should read through before installation)

The following requirements exist for building Apache httpd:
APR and APR-Util
Make sure you have APR and APR-Util already installed on your system. If you don't, or prefer to not use the system-provided versions, download the latest versions of both APR and APR-Util from Apache APR, unpack them into ./srclib/apr and ./srclib/apr-util (be sure the domain names do not have version numbers; for example, the APR distribution must be under ./srclib/apr/) and use ./configure's --with-included-apr option. On some platforms, you may have to install the corresponding -dev packages to allow httpd to build against your installed copy of APR and APR-Util. 

Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions Library (PCRE)
This library is required but not longer bundled with httpd. Download the source code from http://www.pcre.org, or install a Port or Package. If your build system can't find the pcre-config script installed by the PCRE build, point to it using the --with-pcre parameter. On some platforms, you may have to install the corresponding -dev package to allow httpd to build against your installed copy of PCRE. 

Disk Space
Make sure you have at least 50 MB of temporary free disk space available. After installation the server occupies approximately 10 MB of disk space. The actual disk space requirements will vary considerably based on your chosen configuration options, any third-party modules, and, of course, the size of the web site or sites that you have on the server. 

ANSI-C Compiler and Build System
Make sure you have an ANSI-C compiler installed. The GNU C compiler (GCC) from the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is recommended. If you don't have GCC then at least make sure your vendor's compiler is ANSI compliant. In addition, your PATH must contain basic build tools such as make. 

Accurate time keeping
Elements of the HTTP protocol are expressed as the time of day. So, it's time to investigate setting some time synchronization facility on your system. Usually the ntpdate or xntpd programs are used for this purpose which are based on the Network Time Protocol (NTP). See the NTP homepage for more details about NTP software and public time servers. 

Perl 5 [OPTIONAL]
For some of the support scripts like apxs or dbmmanage (which are written in Perl) the Perl 5 interpreter is required (versions 5.003 or newer are sufficient). If you have multiple Perl interpreters (for example, a systemwide install of Perl 4, and your own install of Perl 5), you are advised to use the--with-perl option (see below) to make sure the correct one is used by configure. If no Perl 5 interpreter is found by the configure script, you will not be able to use the affected support scripts. Of course, you will still be able to build and use Apache httpd.