Installing mod_perl 2.0
This chapter provides an in-depth mod_perl 2.0 installation coverage.
Before building mod_perl 2.0 you need to have its prerequisites installed. If you don't have them, download and install them first, using the information in the following sections. Otherwise proceed directly to the mod_perl building instructions.
The mod_perl 2.0 prerequisites are:
Apache
Apache 2.0 is required. mod_perl 2.0 does not work with Apache 1.3.
Dynamic (DSO) mod_perl build requires Apache 2.0.47 or higher. Static build requires Apache 2.0.51 or higher.
Perl
Requires at least Perl version 5.6.1.
You don't need to have threads-support enabled in Perl. If you do have it, it must be ithreads and not 5005threads! If you have:
% perl5.8.0 -V:use5005threads use5005threads='define';
you must rebuild Perl without threads enabled or with -Dusethreads. Remember that threads-support slows things down and on some platforms it's unstable (e.g., FreeBSD), so don't enable it unless you really need it.
-Dusethreads
Require at least Perl version 5.8.0 with ithreads support built-in. That means that it should report:
% perl5.8.0 -V:useithreads -V:usemultiplicity useithreads='define'; usemultiplicity='define';
If that's not what you see rebuild Perl with -Dusethreads.
If you want to run applications that take benefit of Perl's threads.pm Perl version 5.8.1 or higher w/ithreads enabled is required. Perl 5.8.0's threads.pm doesn't work with mod_perl 2.0.
Perl with ithreads support version 5.6.1 or higher
Perl without ithreads support version 5.8.2 or higher
Perl with ithreads support version 5.8.0 or higher
CPAN Perl Modules
The mod_perl 2.0 test suite has several requirements on its own. If you don't satisfy them, the tests depending on these requirements will be skipped, which is OK, but you won't get to run these tests and potential problems, which may exhibit themselves in your own code, could be missed. We don't require them from Makefile.PL, which could have been automated the requirements installation, in order to have less dependencies to get mod_perl 2.0 installed.
Makefile.PL
Also if your code uses any of these modules, chances are that you will need to use at least the version numbers listed here.
If you are going to install mod_perl on a production site, you want to use the officially released stable components. Since the latest stable versions change all the time you should check for the latest stable version at the listed below URLs:
Download from: http://cpan.org/src/README.html
This direct link which symlinks to the latest release should work too: http://cpan.org/src/stable.tar.gz.
For the purpose of examples in this chapter we will use the package named perl-5.8.x.tar.gz, where x should be replaced with the real version number.
Download from: http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/
For the purpose of examples in this chapter we will use the package named httpd-2.x.xx.tar.gz, where x.xx should be replaced with the real version number.
If you really know what you are doing you can use the cvs/svn versions of the components. Chances are that you don't want to them on a production site. You have been warned!
CVS Perl (aka bleadperl or bleedperl) is only generally available through an rsync repository maintained by ActiveState:
# (--delete to ensure a clean state) % rsync -acvz --delete --force \ rsync://ftp.linux.activestate.com/perl-current/ perl-current
If you are re-building Perl after rsync-ing, make sure to cleanup first:
% make distclean
before running ./Configure.
./Configure
You'll also want to install (at least) LWP if you want to fully test mod_perl. You can install LWP with CPAN.pm shell:
CPAN.pm
% perl -MCPAN -e 'install("LWP")'
For more details on bleadperl, see http://dev.perl.org/perl5/source.html.
See Development mod_perl 2.0 Source Distribution.
If you don't have the prerequisites installed yet, install them now.
% cd perl-5.8.x % ./Configure -des
If you need the threads support, run:
% ./Configure -des -Dusethreads
If you want to debug mod_perl segmentation faults, add the following ./Configure options:
-Doptimize='-g' -Dusedevel
Now build it:
% make && make test && make install
% cd httpd-2.x.xx % ./configure --prefix=$HOME/httpd/prefork --with-mpm=prefork % make && make install
Starting from 2.0.49, the Apache logging API escapes everything that goes to error_log, therefore if you're annoyed by this feature during the development phase (as your error messages will be all messed up) you can disable the escaping during the Apache build time:
% CFLAGS="-DAP_UNSAFE_ERROR_LOG_UNESCAPED" ./configure ...
Do not use that CFLAGS in production unless you know what you are doing.
As of this writing only the binaries for the Win32 platform are available, kindly prepared and maintained by Randy Kobes. See the documentation on Win32 binaries for details.
Some RPM packages can be found using rpmfind services, e.g.:
http://www.rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=mod_perl&submit=Search+... However if you have problems using them, you have to contact those who have created them.
Building from source is the best option, because it ensures a binary compatibility with Apache and Perl. However it's possible that your distribution provides a solid binary mod_perl 2.0 package.
For Win32 specific details, see the documentation on Win32 installation.
First download the mod_perl source.
Download from: http://perl.apache.org/download/
This direct link which symlinks to the latest release should work too: http://perl.apache.org/dist/mod_perl-2.0-current.tar.gz.
For the purpose of examples in this chapter we will use the package named mod_perl-2.x.xx.tar.gz, where x.xx should be replaced with the real version number.
Open the package with:
% tar -xvzf mod_perl-2.x.xx.tar.gz
or an equivalent command.
To build mod_perl, you must also use the same compiler that Perl was built with. You can find that out by running perl -V and looking at the Compiler: section.
perl -V
Compiler:
Like any other Perl module, mod_perl is configured via the Makefile.PL file, but requires one or more configuration options:
% cd modperl-1.99_xx % perl Makefile.PL <options>
where options is an optional list of (key,value) pairs.
The following sections give the details about all the available options, but let's mention first an important one.
If you want to have mod_perl 1.0 and 2.0 installed under the same perl tree you need to enable MP_INST_APACHE2:
MP_INST_APACHE2
% perl Makefile.PL MP_INST_APACHE2=1 <other options>
Configure Options are discussed in Build Options
Before you proceed, make sure that Apache 2.0 has been built and installed. mod_perl cannot be built before that.
It seems that most users use pre-packaged Apache installation, most of which tend to spread the Apache files across many directories (i.e. not using --enable-layout=Apache, which puts all the files under the same directory). If Apache 2.0 files are spread under different directories, you need to use at least the MP_APXS option, which should be set to a full path to the apxs executable. For example:
MP_APXS
apxs
% perl Makefile.PL MP_INST_APACHE2=1 MP_APXS=/path/to/apxs
For example RedHat Linux system installs the httpd binary, the apxs and apr-config scripts (the latter two are needed to build mod_perl) all in different locations, therefore they configure mod_perl 2.0 as:
httpd
apr-config
% perl Makefile.PL MP_INST_APACHE2=1 MP_APXS=/path/to/apxs \ MP_APR_CONFIG=/another/path/to/apr-config <other options>
However a correctly built Apache shouldn't require the MP_APR_CONFIG option, since MP_APXS should provide the location of this script.
MP_APR_CONFIG
If however all Apache 2.0 files were installed under the same directory, mod_perl 2.0's build only needs to know the path to that directory, passed via the MP_AP_PREFIX option:
MP_AP_PREFIX
% perl Makefile.PL MP_INST_APACHE2=1 MP_AP_PREFIX=$HOME/httpd/prefork
Before you proceed make sure that Apache 2.0 has been downloaded and extracted. mod_perl cannot be built before that.
If this is an svn checkout and not an official distribution tarball, you need to first run:
% cd httpd-2.0 % ./buildconf
To enable statically linking mod_perl into Apache, use the MP_USE_STATIC flag like this:
MP_USE_STATIC
% perl Makefile.PL MP_USE_STATIC=1 \ MP_AP_PREFIX=$HOME/src/httpd-2.x \ MP_AP_CONFIGURE="--with-mpm=prefork"
MP_AP_PREFIX must point to an extrated Apache 2.0 source tree.
This will configure Apache by passing MP_AP_CONFIGURE to Apache's ./configure script.
MP_AP_CONFIGURE
The following options are boolean and can be set with MP_XXX=1 or unset with MP_XXX=0, where XXX is the name of the option.
MP_XXX=1
MP_XXX=0
Accept default values for all would-be prompts.
Generate XS code from parsed source headers in xs/tables/$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
Build Apache::*.xs as static extensions.
Apache::*.xs
Link with libgtop and enable libgtop reporting.
MP_COMPAT_1X=1 or a lack of it enables several mod_perl 1.0 back-compatibility features, which are deprecated in mod_perl 2.0. It's enabled by default, but can be disabled with MP_COMPAT_1X=0 during the build process.
MP_COMPAT_1X=1
MP_COMPAT_1X=0
When this option is disabled, the following things will happen:
Deprecated special variable, $Apache::__T won't be available. Use ${^TAINT} instead.
$Apache::__T
${^TAINT}
$ServerRoot and $ServerRoot/lib/perl won't be appended to @INC. Instead use:
@INC
PerlSwitches -I/path/to/server -I/path/to/server/lib/perl
in httpd.conf or:
use Apache::ServerUtil (); use File::Spec::Functins qw(catfile); push @INC, catfile Apache::ServerUtil::server_root, ""; push @INC, catfile Apache::ServerUtil::server_root, "lib/perl";
in startup.pl.
The following deprecated configuration directives won't be recognized by Apache:
PerlSendHeader PerlSetupEnv PerlHandler PerlTaintCheck PerlWarn
Use their 2.0 equivalents instead.
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 \ -DAP_DEBUG -DAP_HAVE_DESIGNATED_INITIALIZER
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 in the Perl modules tree (not Apache files tree).
set the non-boolen options 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.
The command-line arguments to pass to httpd's configure script.
Apache installation prefix, under which the include/ directory with Apache C header files can be found. For example if you've installed Apache 2.0 in directory \Apache2 on Win32, you should use:
MP_AP_PREFIX=\Apache2
If Apache is not installed yet, you can point to the Apache 2.0 source directory, but only after you've built or configured Apache in it. For example:
MP_AP_PREFIX=/home/stas/apache.org/httpd-2.0
Though in this case make test won't automatically find httpd, therefore you should run t/TEST instead and pass the location of apxs or httpd, e.g.:
make test
t/TEST
% t/TEST -apxs /home/stas/httpd/prefork/bin/apxs
or
% t/TEST -httpd /home/stas/httpd/prefork/bin/httpd
If APR wasn't installed under the same file tree as httpd, you may need to tell the build process where it can find the executable apr-config, which can then be used to figure out where the apr and aprutil include/ and lib/ directories can be found.
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
On Win32, in order to build the APR and APR::* modules so as to be independent of mod_perl.so, a static library is first built containing the needed functions these modules link into. The option
MP_APR_LIB=aprext
specifies the name that this library has. The default used is aprext. This option has no effect on platforms other than Win32, as they use a different mechanism to accomplish the decoupling of APR and APR::* from mod_perl.so.
aprext
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
Since mod_perl remembers what build options were used to build it if first place, you can use this knowledge to rebuild itself using the same options. Simply chdir(1) to the mod_perl source directory and run:
chdir(1)
% cd modperl-2.x.xx % perl -MApache::Build -e rebuild
Next stage is to build mod_perl:
% make
When mod_perl has been built, it's very important to test that everything works on your machine:
% make test
If something goes wrong with the test phase and want to figure out how to run individual tests and pass various options to the test suite, see the corresponding sections of the bug reporting guidelines or the Apache::Test Framework tutorial.
Once the test suite has passed, it's a time to install mod_perl.
% make install
If you install mod_perl system wide, you probably need to become root prior to doing the installation:
% su # make install
If something goes wrong during the installation, try to repeat the installation process from scratch, while verifying all the steps with this document.
If the problem persists report the problem.
Maintainer is the person(s) you should contact with updates, corrections and patches.
Stas Bekman <stas (at) stason.org>
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.