Installing mod_perl
This chapter provides an indepth mod_perl 2.0 installation coverage.
Lots of prerequisites
XXX: For Win32 specific installation doc here.
Download the httpd-2.0 and modperl-2.0 tarballs, and extract them in the same directory.
Or use anoncvs (password is "anoncvs"):
% cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.apache.org:/home/cvspublic login % cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.apache.org:/home/cvspublic co modperl-2.0 % cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.apache.org:/home/cvspublic co httpd-2.0 % cd httpd-2.0/srclib % cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.apache.org:/home/cvspublic co apr % cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.apache.org:/home/cvspublic co apr-util % cd .. % ./buildconf % ./configure --prefix=$HOME/apache-2.0 --with-mpm=prefork % make && make install
Once extracted, whenever you want to sync with the latest httpd-2.0 version and rebuild, run:
% cd httpd-2.0 % cvs up -dP % make distclean && ./buildconf % ./configure --prefix=$HOME/apache-2.0 --with-mpm=prefork % make && make install
For bleeding edge Perl:
# (--delete to ensure a clean state) % rsync -acvz --delete --force \ rsync://ftp.linux.activestate.com/perl-current/ perl-current % cd perl-current % ./Configure -des -Dprefix=$HOME/bleedperl \ -Dusethreads -Doptimize='-g' -Dusedevel % make && make test && make install % ln -s $HOME/bleedperl/bin/perl5.x.x $HOME/bleedperl/bin/perl
or otherwise make sure that your perl was built with threads enabled if you want to use a threaded MPM.
If you are re-building Perl after rsync-ing, make sure to cleanup:
% make distclean
before running ./Configure.
./Configure
You'll also want to install (at least) LWP into the bleedperl/lib directory if you want to fully test mod_perl, because normally a privately installed bleedperl won't find libraries installed in the normal places; it only looks in it's own lib tree. You can install LWP with CPAN.pm shell:
% $HOME/bleedperl/bin/perl -MCPAN -e 'install("LWP")'
% cd modperl-2.0 % perl Makefile.PL MP_AP_PREFIX=/home/stas/src/httpd-2.0.xx % make
options an optional list of (key,value) pairs.
The following options are boolean and can be set with MP_XXX=1 or unset with MP_XXX=0, where XXX is the name of the option.
MP_XXX=1
MP_XXX=0
Accept default values for all would-be prompts.
Generate XS code from parsed source headers in xs/tables/$httpd_version. Default is 1, set to 0 to disable.
Build mod_perl as a DSO (mod_perl.so). This is the default. It'll be turned off if MP_USE_STATIC=1 is used.
MP_USE_STATIC=1
Build static mod_perl (mod_perl.a). This is the default. It'll be turned off if MP_USE_DSO=1 is used.
MP_USE_DSO=1
MP_USE_DSO and MP_USE_STATIC are both enabled by default. So mod_perl is built once as mod_perl.a and mod_perl.so, but afterwards you can choose which of the two to use.
MP_USE_DSO
MP_USE_STATIC
META: The following is not implemented yet.
mod_perl and ends up with a src/modules/perl/mod_perl.{so,a} and src/modules/perl/ldopts. to link modperl static with httpd, we just need some config.m4 magic to add `ldopts` and mod_perl.a to the build. so one could then build httpd like so: ln -s ~/apache/modperl-2.0/src/modules/perl $PWD/src/modules ./configure --with-mpm=prefork --enable-perl=static ... we not be configuring/building httpd for the user as 1.x attempted. downside is one will need to have configured httpd first, so that headers generated. so it will probably be more like: ./configure --with-mpm=prefork ... (go build modperl) ./config.nice --enable-perl=static && make we could of course provide a wrapper script todo this, but don't want to have this stuff buried and tangled like it is in 1.x
Build Apache::*.xs as static extensions.
Apache::*.xs
Link with libgtop and enable libgtop reporting.
Turn on debugging (-g -lperld) and tracing.
-g -lperld
Enable maintainer compile mode, which sets MP_DEBUG=1 and adds the following gcc flags:
MP_DEBUG=1
gcc
-DAP_DEBUG -Wall -Wmissing-prototypes -Wstrict-prototypes \ -Wmissing-declarations
To use this mode Apache must be build with --enable-maintainer-mode.
--enable-maintainer-mode
Enable tracing
Install all the *.pm modules relative to the Apache2/ directory.
Non-Boolean options: set them with MP_XXX=value.
Path to apxs. For example if you've installed Apache 2.0 under /home/httpd/httpd-2.0 as DSO, the default location would be /home/httpd/httpd-2.0/bin/apxs.
apxs
META: this option most likely will go away, use MP_AP_PREFIX
Apache installation prefix, under which the Apache include/ directory can be found. If Apache is not installed yet, you can point to the source directory. For example if you've have installed Apache 2.0 in \Apache2 on Win32, you should use:
\Apache2
MP_AP_PREFIX=\Apache2
Add to compiler flags, e.g.:
MP_CCOPTS=-Werror
(Notice that -Werror will work only with the Perl version 5.7 and higher.)
-Werror
Read build options from given file. e.g.:
MP_OPTIONS_FILE=~/.my_mod_perl2_opts
mod_perl specific compiler options:
Change the default mod_perl's 8K IO buffer size, e.g. to 16K:
MP_CCOPTS=-DMP_IOBUFSIZE=16384
Options can also be specified in the file makepl_args.mod_perl2 or .makepl_args.mod_perl2. The file can be placed under $ENV{HOME}, the root of the source package or its parent directory. So if you unpack the mod_perl source into /tmp/mod_perl-2.x/ and your home is /home/foo/, the file will be searched in:
$ENV{HOME}
/tmp/mod_perl-2.x/makepl_args.mod_perl2 /tmp/makepl_args.mod_perl2 /home/foo/makepl_args.mod_perl2 /tmp/mod_perl-2.x/.makepl_args.mod_perl2 /tmp/.makepl_args.mod_perl2 /home/foo/.makepl_args.mod_perl2
If the file specified in MP_OPTIONS_FILE is found the makepl_args.mod_perl2 will be ignored.
MP_OPTIONS_FILE
Options specified on the command line override those from makepl_args.mod_perl2 and those from MP_OPTIONS_FILE.
If your terminal supports colored text you may want to set the environment variable APACHE_TEST_COLOR to 1 to enable the colored tracing which makes it easier to tell the reported errors and warnings, from the rest of the notifications.
APACHE_TEST_COLOR
% make
% cd ../httpd-2.0 % ./configure --with-mpm=prefork % make
% make test
Apache::Test Framework document covers the make test suite.
make test
META: probably need to link directly to the 'Running Tests' section.
All mod_perl-2.0 xs code is generated from parsed header files. While in pre-release mode, a version of these tables will be checked in to xs/tables/current. Should you wish to update these tables, here's how:
NOTE: requires C::Scan 0.75, which at the moment is unreleased, there is a working copy here: http://perl.apache.org/~dougm/Scan.pm
NOTE: source_scan.pl is a HEAVY process, do not be alarmed.
% perl build/source_scan.pl apxs $apache_prefix/bin/apxs
META: this is covered in Core Explained should probably move/point there.
Since mod_perl remembers what build options were used to build it, you can use this knowledge to rebuild itself using the same options. Simply chdir(1) to the mod_perl source directory and run:
% cd modperl-2.0 % perl -MApache::Build -e rebuild
As of this writing only the binaries for the Win32 platform are available, kindly prepared and maintained by Randy Kobes.
XXX: link to Win32 download doc.
Maintainer is the person(s) you should contact with updates, corrections and patches.
Doug MacEachern <dougm (at) covalent.net>
Only the major authors are listed above. For contributors see the Changes file.
To install mod_perl, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm mod_perl
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install mod_perl
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.