NetBSD Wiki/tutorials/ how to setup a webserver

Contents

  1. How to run a webserver on NetBSD
    1. bozotic HTTP server
      1. Register the daemon
        1. Run with inetd
        2. Run in standalone mode
      2. Examples
    2. Apache HTTP server
      1. Install
      2. Register the daemon
      3. Configuration
        1. DSO
        2. Run CGI
        3. Run PHP
        4. Further reading

How to run a webserver on NetBSD

First of all, logging as root is required thus you can install packages and edit system configuration files.

If you want to install packages to NetBSD, you can do this in several different ways, using pkgsrc, pkgin or pkg_add. Please see the chapter about installing additional software in the guide.

There are several HTTP daemons. The following text will introduce bozotic HTTP server and Apache HTTP server.

bozotic HTTP server

bozohttpd is a small and secure HTTP 1.1 server shipped with NetBSD (/usr/libexec/httpd) by default. It's very simple and there isn't even a configuration file. But it only provides the most basic features.

Register the daemon

Run with inetd

bozohttpd can be run with inetd, and you need to register it to inetd. Daemons hosted by inetd is registered at /etc/inetd.conf. inetd.conf is an ascii file containing one service per line, and several fields per line. The basic layout is:

service-name socket-type protocol wait/nowait user:group server-program arguments

In this case(handling HTTP requests), the basic format is:

http    stream  tcp nowait:600  nobody  FULL_PATH_OF_DAEMON DAEMON_NAME_AND_ARGUMENTS

Append this to /etc/inetd.conf (assuming that your files are located in /var/www):

http    stream  tcp nowait:600  nobody  /usr/libexec/httpd httpd /var/www

Telling inetd to reload the file makes httpd work immediately. You may run the following command:

# /etc/rc.d/inetd reload
Reloading inetd config files.

Here are the frequently used options:

To get more information about options, see bozohttpd(8).

Run in standalone mode

bozohttpd can be run without inetd. You have to add -b to the parameters to enable daemon mode.

/usr/libexec/httpd -b /var/www

Because listening ports under 1024 requires root privilege, and running a webserver with root privilege is unsafe, you may want to change the user to nobody after initializing sockets. The command argument for this is -U USERNAME.

Now the command line looks like this:

/usr/libexec/httpd -b -U nobody /var/www

To make bozohttpd run when the system boots, you have to activate it in your rc.local(5) by setting httpd=YES. Arguments you want to pass can be set with the httpd_flags variable, e.g. acitvating bozohttpd with directory indexing would result in:

httpd=YES
httpd_flags="-X"

Examples

Apache HTTP server

The Apache HTTP server is a widely-used open source HTTP server. Apache is a powerful HTTP server, which can be extended by loading dynamic shared object (DSO).

Install

You have to install Apache, it is not shipped with NetBSD. You can do this by executing pkgin install apache, cd /usr/pkgsrc/www/apache; make install or by using pkg_add:

# pkg_add apache-2.4.3
pkg_add: Warning: package `apache-2.4.3' was built for a platform:
pkg_add: NetBSD/i386 6.0 (pkg) vs. NetBSD/i386 6.0.1 (this host)
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-autoindex.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-autoindex.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-dav.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-dav.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-default.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-default.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-info.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-info.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-languages.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-languages.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-manual.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-manual.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-mpm.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-mpm.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-multilang-errordoc.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-multilang-errordoc.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-ssl.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-ssl.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-userdir.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-userdir.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd-vhosts.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/httpd.conf to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd.conf
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/magic to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/magic
apache-2.4.3: copying /usr/pkg/share/examples/httpd/mime.types to /usr/pkg/etc/httpd/mime.types
===========================================================================
The following files should be created for apache-2.4.3:

    /etc/rc.d/apache (m=0755)
        [/usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/apache]

===========================================================================
===========================================================================
$NetBSD: how_to_setup_a_webserver.mdwn,v 1.2 2013/03/14 23:44:47 jdf Exp $

After apache-2.4.3, --enable-mpms-shared='event prefork worker' is
passed to configure script, then three multi-process model is built
and you can select the model in configuraton file.

The mod_cgi.so module conflicts with non-prefork multi-process model,
and mod_cgi.so module is not built anymore.
You can use mod_cgid.so module instead.
===========================================================================

Register the daemon

The main tool to control the service of Apache is apachectl. To make it work like normal services, supporting commands such as /etc/rc.d/apache stop, you need to copy the script provided by Apache to /etc/rc.d/apache:

# cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/apache /etc/rc.d

To make Apache run when system boots, you may set the rc variable apache to yes. This can be done by creating /etc/rc.conf.d/apache and insert the following text to the file:

apache=yes

or writing this line into your rc.conf(5) directly.

You can also run this to start Apache immediately:

# /etc/rc.d/apache start
Starting apache.

or:

# apachectl start

To see whether the server is started successfully, you can visit http://127.0.0.1. The dafault page is:

<html><body><h1>It works!</h1></body></html>

Another way to check the daemon status:

# /etc/rc.d/apache status
apache is running as pid 1574.

Note: Since version 2.0, Apache doesn't support inetd operation mode anymore. Running Apache with inetd is not supported.

Configuration

Apache has lots of features, so it uses a configuration file(/usr/pkg/etc/httpd/httpd.conf). The general structure of this document is:

KEY VALUES
<DIRECTORY VALUES>
    KEY VALUES
</DIRECTORY>

Here are the frequently used options:

To check the syntax, you may run:

NetBSD# apachectl configtest
Syntax OK

DSO

Apache is a modular program where the administrator can choose the functionality to include in the server by selecting a set of modules (DSO). Apache's DSOs are located in /usr/pkg/lib/httpd.

# cd /usr/pkg/lib/httpd
# ls
httpd.exp                   mod_authz_owner.so          mod_ext_filter.so           mod_mpm_worker.so           mod_session_cookie.so
mod_access_compat.so        mod_authz_user.so           mod_file_cache.so           mod_negotiation.so          mod_session_dbd.so
mod_actions.so              mod_autoindex.so            mod_filter.so               mod_proxy.so                mod_setenvif.so
mod_alias.so                mod_buffer.so               mod_headers.so              mod_proxy_ajp.so            mod_slotmem_plain.so
mod_allowmethods.so         mod_cache.so                mod_heartbeat.so            mod_proxy_balancer.so       mod_slotmem_shm.so
mod_asis.so                 mod_cache_disk.so           mod_heartmonitor.so         mod_proxy_connect.so        mod_socache_dbm.so
mod_auth_basic.so           mod_cgid.so                 mod_include.so              mod_proxy_express.so        mod_socache_memcache.so
mod_auth_digest.so          mod_charset_lite.so         mod_info.so                 mod_proxy_fcgi.so           mod_socache_shmcb.so
mod_auth_form.so            mod_data.so                 mod_lbmethod_bybusyness.so  mod_proxy_fdpass.so         mod_speling.so
mod_authn_anon.so           mod_dav.so                  mod_lbmethod_byrequests.so  mod_proxy_ftp.so            mod_ssl.so
mod_authn_core.so           mod_dav_fs.so               mod_lbmethod_bytraffic.so   mod_proxy_http.so           mod_status.so
mod_authn_dbd.so            mod_dav_lock.so             mod_lbmethod_heartbeat.so   mod_proxy_scgi.so           mod_substitute.so
mod_authn_dbm.so            mod_dbd.so                  mod_log_config.so           mod_ratelimit.so            mod_unique_id.so
mod_authn_file.so           mod_deflate.so              mod_log_debug.so            mod_reflector.so            mod_unixd.so
mod_authn_socache.so        mod_dialup.so               mod_log_forensic.so         mod_remoteip.so             mod_userdir.so
mod_authz_core.so           mod_dir.so                  mod_logio.so                mod_reqtimeout.so           mod_usertrack.so
mod_authz_dbd.so            mod_dumpio.so               mod_mime.so                 mod_request.so              mod_version.so
mod_authz_dbm.so            mod_echo.so                 mod_mime_magic.so           mod_rewrite.so              mod_vhost_alias.so
mod_authz_groupfile.so      mod_env.so                  mod_mpm_event.so            mod_sed.so                  mod_watchdog.so
mod_authz_host.so           mod_expires.so              mod_mpm_prefork.so          mod_session.so

Write LoadModule MODULE FILENAME in the configuration file, and the specific module will be loaded when Apache starts. You can also configure the module in this way:

<IfModule MODULE>
    KEY VALUES
</IfModule>

Run the following commands to apply the configuration:

NetBSD# /etc/rc.d/apache reload

or:

NetBSD# apachectl graceful

To get full manual, visit /usr/pkg/share/httpd/manual.

Run CGI

For security ressons, Apache doesn't permit executing CGI programs by default. Uncomment the following line to httpd.conf to permit Apache executing CGI:

LoadModule cgid_module lib/httpd/mod_cgid.so

The next step is telling Apache which directory is set aside for CGI programs. Apache will assume that every file in this directory is a CGI program, and will attempt to execute it, when that particular resource is requested by a client.

The syntax is:

ScriptAlias URL_PATH FILE_PATH_OR_DIRECTORY_PATH

For example:

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/local/apache2/cgi-bin/

The CGI programs should be given executing permission. Modify the permission in this way:

chmod a+x CGI_FILE_PATH

Run PHP

The PHP module is not included by default. Run the following command to obtain the Apache module (or its pkgin and pkgsrc equivalents).

# pkg_add -v "ap24-php5*"

You should load the PHP module in httpd.conf. Append the following lines to httpd.conf:

LoadModule php5_module lib/httpd/mod_php5.so
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php

Maybe you want .php instead of .html to be your default page. You may append the following line:

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html

You can write the following lines as a php file and visit it to check whether PHP works correctly. Don't forget to reload the configuration before testing.

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

If you want to configure PHP, use the following syntax:

<IfModule mod_php5.c>
    php_value NAME VALUE
    php_flag NAME on|off
    php_admin_value NAME VALUE
    php_admin_flag NAME on|off
</IfModule>

Further reading

You should also have a look at the excellent online documentation of Apache: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/

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Last edited Thursday night, March 14th, 2013
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