newbie apache questions

[Dale Therio <st...@colony.net>]

Hello,

I am new to apache and trying to configure a server using a 
combination of manually editing the httpd.conf and using 
webmin.

I am moving form a Mac OS based server to a REdhat Linux 
server.

One thing I am wondering is do I really need to setup 
individual cgi-bin directories for my other hosted domains? 
None of the folks using those domains really do anything other 
than html. I will have perl and php on the server for them to 
use if they desire, but I don't believe that requires such a 
folder.

If I do not set it up now, will it be difficult in the future 
to add such a "special" folder?

My primary server-side tool is a product called WebCatalog 
which will only be used by a couple of domains. It has it's 
own special folder that I believe I should place outsite of 
the cgi-bin folder as the files are access via file extension.

I would also like to run 2 independent copies of apache on one 
server. One copy with only fastCGI and mod_perl for my ad 
server, the other more fully loaded which will be for my 
development server to test my primary site before going live. 
How difficult is it to run and manage 2 seperate copies of 
apache on the same machine - or is this not recommended?

I also wonder what your recommendations are for setting up 
virtual domains. This would be name based domains.

My root directory is /var/www/html - per the default 
configuration. Should my virtual domains be under the html 
folder or at the same level as the html folder (at the same 
level as the www folder)?

What would the benefits be in either case? I will have 3 
machines running apache.

#1 - various test/development domains and the domain for my 
perl based ad server

#2 - 5-6 virtual domains using the same back end tool. With 
some domains mapped on top of the other, e.g. company1.com is 
the same content as company2.com

#3 - 25 low volume virtual domains, totally independent of 
each other. Some will use php and perl.
Thank you.

I do have a book on apache and am going through the online 
docs, but this is so much different form what I have been 
running for years some of the stuff is still a little unclear.

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Re: newbie apache questions

[Irmund Thum <it...@it97.dyn.dhs.org>]

Dale Therio wrote:


> One thing I am wondering is do I really need to setup individual cgi-bin 
> directories for my other hosted domains? 


no

-- 
_ ___
|  |  Irmund    Thum
|  |


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Re: newbie apache questions

[Stephen Reppucci <sg...@logsoft.com>]

On Sun, 17 Mar 2002, Dale Therio wrote:

> One thing I am wondering is do I really need to setup
> individual cgi-bin directories for my other hosted domains?
> None of the folks using those domains really do anything other
> than html. I will have perl and php on the server for them to
> use if they desire, but I don't believe that requires such a
> folder.

No. If they don't need a cgi-bin directory, don't configure one for
them.

> If I do not set it up now, will it be difficult in the future
> to add such a "special" folder?

No, it's trivial.

> I would also like to run 2 independent copies of apache on one
> server. One copy with only fastCGI and mod_perl for my ad
> server, the other more fully loaded which will be for my
> development server to test my primary site before going live.
> How difficult is it to run and manage 2 seperate copies of
> apache on the same machine - or is this not recommended?

Not difficult. Just do some pre-planning to make sure the components
of each server are not comingled.  I do this a lot, when I'm setting
up an environment where I know the two servers will eventually live
on separate hardware, but I don't currently have the hardware in
place.

> I also wonder what your recommendations are for setting up
> virtual domains. This would be name based domains.
>
> My root directory is /var/www/html - per the default
> configuration. Should my virtual domains be under the html
> folder or at the same level as the html folder (at the same
> level as the www folder)?

I like to set up my tree like so:

   $ROOT/server/virt

where $ROOT is the root directory under which all apache stuff
lives, 'server' is the "role" of the server I'm running, and 'virt'
is the virtual host running under there (when needed).  This leaves
me with a tree like so (using some sample names):

  /apache		# Root of all apache stuff
    /www		# My public server
      /htdocs		# content
      /cgi-bin          # cgi scripts for my public site
      /perl             # my mod_perl module tree
    /intranet		# My Intranet server
      /htdocs
      /cgi-bin
    /clients
      /www.foo.com	# Vhost for foo.com domain
        /htdocs/	# ...their content
        /cgi-bin/	# ...and cgi scripts, if needed
      /www.bar.com	# Vhost for bar.com domain
        etc.

Having separate servers does a couple of things for you:
- It makes it possible to do reconfigurations on one without
affecting folks using the other, e.g. I can try out changes on my
public server without affecting my clients who are using the other
server.

- It makes it easy to move a server to an alternate host when new
equipment becomes available.

There are ton of ways to do this, this is one that's worked well for
me, but I'm sure others will have their own ways.

-- 
Steve Reppucci                                       sgr@logsoft.com |
Logical Choice Software                          http://logsoft.com/ |
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  My God!  What have I done?  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


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