Once you have mod_perl installed, you need to
configure the server and test it.
The first thing to do is ensure that Apache was built correctly and
that it can serve plain HTML files. This helps to minimize the number
of possible problem areas: once you have confirmed that Apache can
serve plain HTML files, you know that any problems with mod_perl are
related to mod_perl itself.
Apache should be configured just as you would configure it without
mod_perl. Use the defaults as suggested, customizing only when
necessary. Values that will probably need to be customized are
ServerName, Port,
User, Group,
ServerAdmin, DocumentRoot, and
a few others. There are helpful hints preceding each directive in the
configuration files themselves, with further information in
Apache's documentation. Follow the advice in the
files and documentation if in doubt.
When the configuration file has been edited, start the server. One of
the ways to start and stop the server is to use the
apachectl utility. To start the
server with apachectl, type:
panic# /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start
To stop the server, type:
panic# /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl stop
Note that if the server will listen on port 80 or
another privileged port,[11] the user executing
apachectl must be root.
[11]Privileged ports are 0-1023.
Only the programs running as root are allowed to
bind to these.
After the server has started, check in the
error_log file
(/usr/local/apache/logs/error_log, by default)
to see if the server has indeed started. Do not rely on the
apachectl status reports. The
error_log should contain something like the
following:
[Thu Jun 22 17:14:07 2000] [notice] Apache/1.3.12 (Unix)
mod_perl/1.24 configured -- resuming normal operations
Now point your browser to
http://localhost/ or
http://example.com/, as configured with the
ServerName directive. If the
Port directive has been set with a value other
than 80, add this port number to the end of the
server name. For example, if the port is 8080, test the server with
http://localhost:8080/ or
http://example.com:8080/. The
"It Worked!" page, which is an
index.html file that is installed automatically
when running make install in the Apache source
tree, should appear in the browser. If this page does not appear,
something went wrong and the contents of the
logs/error_log file should be checked. The path
to the error log file is specified by the ErrorLog
directive in httpd.conf. (It is usually
specified relative to the ServerRoot, so a value
of logs/error_log usually means
/usr/local/apache/logs/error_log if Apache is
installed into /usr/local/apache.)
If everything works as expected, shut down the server, open
httpd.conf with a text editor, and scroll to the
end of the file. The mod_perl configuration directives are
conventionally added to the end of httpd.conf.
It is possible to place mod_perl's configuration
directives anywhere in httpd.conf, but adding
them at the end seems to work best in practice.
Assuming that all the scripts that should be executed by the
mod_perl-enabled server are located in the
/home/stas/modperl directory, add the following
configuration directives:
Alias /perl/ /home/stas/modperl/
PerlModule Apache::Registry
<Location /perl/>
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler Apache::Registry
Options +ExecCGI
PerlSendHeader On
Allow from all
</Location>
Save the modified file.
This configuration causes every URI starting with
/perl to be handled by the Apache mod_perl
module with the handler from the Perl module
Apache::Registry.
