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=head1 NAME
Getting Your Feet Wet
=head1 Description
This chapter gives you step-by-step instructions to get a basic
statically-compiled mod_perl-enabled Apache server up and
running. Having a running server allows you to experiment with
mod_perl as you learn more about it.
(Of course, you'll be experimenting on a private machine, not on a
production server, right?)  The remainder of the guide, along with the
documentation supplied with mod_perl, gives the detailed information
required for fine-tuning your mod_perl-enabled server to deliver the
best possible performance.
Although there are binary distributions of mod_perl-enabled Apache
servers available for various platforms, we recommend that you always
build mod_perl from source.  It's simple to do (provided you have all
the proper tools on your machine), and building from source
circumvents possible problems with the binary distributions (such as
the reported bugs with the RPM packages built for RedHat Linux).
The mod_perl installation that follows has been tested on many
mainstream Unix and Linux platforms.  Unless you're using a very
non-standard system, you should have no problems when building the
basic mod_perl server.
For Windows users, the simplest solution is to use the L<binary
package|download::binaries>. Windows users may skip to the
L<Installing mod_perl for Windows|/Installing_mod_perl_for_Windows>.
=head1 Installing mod_perl in Three Steps
You can install mod_perl in three easy steps: Obtaining the source
files required to build mod_perl, building mod_perl, and installing
it.
Building mod_perl from source requires a machine with basic
development tools.  In particular, you will need an ANSI-compliant C
compiler (such as I<gcc>) and the I<make> utility. All standard
Unix-like distributions include these tools. If a required tool is not
already installed, then use the package manager that is provided with
the system (I<rpm>, I<apt>, I<yast>, etc.)  to install them.
A recent version of Perl is also required, at least version 5.004.
Perl is available as an installable package, although most Unix-like
distributions will have installed Perl by default. To check that the
tools are available and learn about their version numbers, try:
  % make -v
  % gcc -v
  % perl -v
If any of these responds with C<Command not found>, it will need to be
installed.
Once all the tools are in place the installation process can begin.
Experienced Unix users will need no explanation of the commands that
follow and can simply copy and paste them into a terminal window to
get the server installed.
Acquire the source code distrubutions of Apache and mod_perl from the
Internet, using your favorite web browser or one of the command line
clients like I<wget>, I<lwp-download>, etc. These two distributions
are available from I<http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/> and
I<http://perl.apache.org/dist/>.
The two packages are named I<apache_x.x.x.tar.gz> and
I<mod_perl-x.xx.tar.gz>, where I<x.x.x> should be replaced with the
real version numbers of mod_perl and Apache.
Move the downloaded packages into a directory of your choice, I<e.g.>,
I</home/stas/src/>, proceed with the described steps and you will have
mod_perl installed:
  % cd /home/stas/src
  % tar -zvxf apache_x.x.x.tar.gz
  % tar -zvxf mod_perl-x.xx.tar.gz
  % cd mod_perl-x.xx
  % perl Makefile.PL APACHE_SRC=../apache_x.x.x/src \
      APACHE_PREFIX=/home/httpd DO_HTTPD=1 USE_APACI=1 EVERYTHING=1
  % make && make test
  % su
  # make install
That's all!
All that remains is to add a few configuration lines to the Apache
configuration file, (I</usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf>), start the
server, and enjoy mod_perl.
The following detailed explanation of each step should help you solve
any problems that may have arisen when executing the commands above.
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