[users@httpd] newcomer's questions

[Paul Erkens <pj...@xs4all.nl>]

Hi,

I'm a just-above-average experienced windows 2000 user and although I have
an ftp server on the internet, I never had a web server before. So I'm
really really new to this type of material and I've never worked on a unix
system.

1: Simple beginner's manual available?
No matter what documentation I read, it all seams to be aimed at experienced
users. Does anyone know about a simple document that describes the very
basics of understanding apache 2.0 on a windows platform? Like how do you
pull up a one-page website that has just "hello world" in proper html code?
Apache supports a lot of things, but every one must start at zero. I know
nothing about perl, cgi, php and so on. All I need just now, is some simple
text file to understand what I absolutely need, and what I can absolutely
leave for the near future.

A few other things I bump into are:

- how can apache be told to see my d:/www directory where I have just one
file: index.html? It keeps displaying the predefined site files that came
with apache, but I want it to display my index.html when I browse to the
ip-address of the machine running apache in my small home network. What may
be misconfigured?

- Why do English html files that come with apache have a .en extension,
while all I want is display a simple .html file? I need no language support
at all for now. Can I safely remove all language directives without harming
my apache server?

- When I start apache, it says none of 1 virtual hosts is running. I have
one machine, would like just one website and I don't understand virtual
hosts yet. What _is_ a virtual host? Why doesn't apache simply say it is
running, rather than telling me "none of 1" thing is running? How many
(hosts?) can be run and why would I want to do this?

- What is a module and why would I need any?

- What happens if I leave all .conf settings in their defaults? Will I be
able to run apache safely?

- I have no internet domain as far as I know. All I did was attach my ip
external address to a dns string. Instead of entering my ip address, people
can enter the dns name to reach my ftp server. Does this automatically mean
that I have an internet domain that can be used for the web server as well?

2: configuration.
What directives are absolutely necessary for the apache server to work? Is a
.conf file of 1k or less also possible?

I have many more questions, but I would be grateful if some of you are
willing to help this newbie. Thankx very much.

Regards,
Paul.




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Re: [users@httpd] newcomer's questions

[Jacob Coby <jc...@listingbook.com>]

> 1: Simple beginner's manual available?
> No matter what documentation I read, it all seams to be aimed at
experienced
> users. Does anyone know about a simple document that describes the very
> basics of understanding apache 2.0 on a windows platform? Like how do you
> pull up a one-page website that has just "hello world" in proper html
code?
> Apache supports a lot of things, but every one must start at zero. I know
> nothing about perl, cgi, php and so on. All I need just now, is some
simple
> text file to understand what I absolutely need, and what I can absolutely
> leave for the near future.

The default windows msi distro should do exactly what you want.  Install
apache, start it, everything works.

> - how can apache be told to see my d:/www directory where I have just one
> file: index.html? It keeps displaying the predefined site files that came
> with apache, but I want it to display my index.html when I browse to the
> ip-address of the machine running apache in my small home network. What
may
> be misconfigured?

That is in your httpd.conf, the DocumentRoot directive.  Change it to say
"D:/www" like you want and then restart apache.

> - Why do English html files that come with apache have a .en extension,
> while all I want is display a simple .html file? I need no language
support
> at all for now. Can I safely remove all language directives without
harming
> my apache server?

Sure.  The language features aren't used if you don't add the .en, .de, .fr,
.whatever extention though, so its only a minor issue.  You can just nix the
whole language stuff from the .conf file.

> - When I start apache, it says none of 1 virtual hosts is running. I have
> one machine, would like just one website and I don't understand virtual
> hosts yet. What _is_ a virtual host? Why doesn't apache simply say it is
> running, rather than telling me "none of 1" thing is running? How many
> (hosts?) can be run and why would I want to do this?

A virtual host is a single website.  You can have as many websites as you
want on a single computer, and they can either be defined by name, or by ip.
In other words, you have have www.foo.com, www.foo2.com, www.foo3.com and
have them work off of the same IP address, or on different IP addresses.
You'd still have to pay for the domain names.

> - What is a module and why would I need any?

A module is a loadable extention to apache.  PHP, perl, authorization
extentions, language extensions, directory indexing, etc [can] all be loaded
as modules.  If you don't need them, don't load them and save a bit of ram
and cpu.

> - What happens if I leave all .conf settings in their defaults? Will I be
> able to run apache safely?

Sure.

> - I have no internet domain as far as I know. All I did was attach my ip
> external address to a dns string. Instead of entering my ip address,
people
> can enter the dns name to reach my ftp server. Does this automatically
mean
> that I have an internet domain that can be used for the web server as
well?

If you can type in "nslookup yourdomain.com" and have it return an ip
address, you have a domain that can be used for a web server.

> 2: configuration.
> What directives are absolutely necessary for the apache server to work? Is
a
> .conf file of 1k or less also possible?

Most of the stuff at the top, and the DocumentRoot stuff.  Anything in
<IfDefine> you can probably remove, if you don't wan that functionality.  1k
is pushing it.

 > I have many more questions, but I would be grateful if some of you are
> willing to help this newbie. Thankx very much.

That's what this list is for.  I'm sure you'll be able to answer your own
questions soon, once that epiphany hits :-)

-Jacob


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