How to install Apache web server in Fedora 14? Can yum be used for installing?

[Tim]

Tim:
>> If you start it up from one of the configuration GUIs, it'll ask you to
>> enter the root password, just to use that GUI.  Again, you only need to
>> be logged in as yourself.

Varuna Seneviratna:
> What is the or are the configuration GUis that are included with
> fedora 14 or can be installed?

I'm not up to date with the latest version of Fedora, but the older
Fedora has a "services" GUI in the System/Administration menu.  This has
stop/start functions for all services currently installed on the
computer.  KDE has something similar.

>> While still the root user, you change the ownership of /var/www/html to
>> yourself.

> How Am I able to change the ownership of the /var/www/html through the
> terminal when logged in as root?

See the man page for "chown" (change ownership).  You can apply it to
directories and files.  Be aware that there *may* be a problem with
changing the ownership of /var/www/html/ as it's a standard directory,
that might be expected to be root owned, though I can't think of
anything that actually does care.

  e.g. chown varuna /var/www/html

You might also want to learn about the apropos command, to search for
man pages on some keyword that springs to mind.

apropos owner

Would return a list of man pages, and packages, that match the query of
owner.  Then it's a case of trying to think of the keyword that's likely
to be used to describe what you want to learn about.  That'll probably
help you with the next thing you need to find out about.

Another hint about file ownership and permissions:  Web serveable files
should not be owned by the username that runs the webserver (apache),
likewise they should not be writable by all users, else files can be
written to through someone using the webserver, otherwise known as
hacking.

i.e. /var/www/html/important-page.html Should be owned by you, or root,
or some other username, but not apache.  Likewise for groups.  And only
the first group of permissions should be writable.

e.g. -rw-r--r--  1 tim  tim    213 2007-11-11 19:15 testpage.html


>> While still the root user, you can reconfigure the webserver to use a
>> different directory, one that is owned by yourself (such as a
>> sub-directory placed inside /var/www/html.

> While I am the root user How is it possible to configure the webserver
> to use a different directory through the terminal?

Apache's config is inside /etc/httpd, my main server configuration file
is "/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf".  The DocumentRoot directive configures
where the website starts from.

Once you start Apache, you can read it's manual by browsing to 
http://localhost/manual/

Learning how to use the webserver is an important part of making
websites, especially if you're doing anything more than just serving out
prepared HTML and image files, such as dynamic pages, scripts, etc.

For that reason, it's very useful to either install the same server
software that your public website uses, or seek out a public server that
uses the same software that you already have.  Fortunately, Apache is
widely used.


> As usual the Firewall that comes with fedora is enabled.But what I am
> not aware of is that when an webserver is listinig on port 80 is it
> accessible to outside parties?

By default, the webserver listens to all network connections on port 80.
With a firewall in place, an outsider can't connect, even if the
webserver is ready and waiting.

You can configure the webserver to only listen to certain networks.  For
instance, if you only have one computer, you could set it to only listen
to 127.0.0.1 (itself).  This is configured by the (drum roll) "Listen"
directive in the Apache configuration file.

>> NB:  Don't top post on this list.  Write your replies below the bits of
>> someone's messages that you're replying to, as I've done.

> I am sorry If I inconvenienced you guys by doing top posting.I typed
> where the curer appeared when the reply link was clicked on the Gmail
> inbox.I hope i have now corrected that error

Yes, that's the way.  You'll get more help, this way.  It's what the
list expects, and plenty of people will just hit delete when they see
messages which don't comply.

Some will say, the cursor being somewhere in particular on the page
doesn't mean you're supposed to start typing them, just that you start
working on the reply from there, which might be snipping out parts that
don't need quoting.

>> Also, I see you've got your own address in the "reply-to" header,

> What you say is True But I don't get two copies I don't know why?

That could be because you're using gmail, and perhaps it can filter out
duplicates.  It can hide your own posts coming back from a server, going
by what others have said about gmail.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.  I
read messages from the public lists.