Configure Apache in RHEL / CENTOS

Packages required	httpd, httpd-devel, httpd-manual
Daemon	/usr/sbin/httpd
Script	/etc/init.d/httpd
Ports	80/tcp (http) , 443/tcp (https)
Configuration	/etc/httpd/* /var/www/*

These are the things to be thought of while setting web server.

Step 1: Install the web server packages using yum

# yum install httpd*

Step 2: Edit the configuration file which is “/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf”

# vim /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Ø      Find the line containing this one (around line nu 270)

#ServerName www.example.com:80

And make it as 

ServerName server.example.com:80

Here server.example.com is the hostname of my server

Ø      Next, find the line containing (around line nu 990)

#NameVirtualHost *:80

And make it as below

NameVirtualHost 192.168.10.100:80

Here 192.168.10.100 is the ip of my server.

Ø      Now edit the last 7 lines

#<VirtualHost *:80>

 #    ServerAdmin webmaster@dummy-host.example.com

 #    DocumentRoot /www/docs/dummy-host.example.com

 #    ServerName dummy-host.example.com

 #    ErrorLog logs/dummy-host.example.com-error_log

 #    CustomLog logs/dummy-host.example.com-access_log common

 #</VirtualHost>

As

<VirtualHost 192.168.10.100:80>

     ServerAdmin root@server.example.com

     DocumentRoot /var/www/html

     ServerName server.example.com

     ErrorLog logs/server.example.com-error_log

     CustomLog logs/server.example.com-access_log common

</VirtualHost>

Ø      Of the above mentioned configuration

    “DocumentRoot /var/www/html” is the location of our index.html page.

    “ServerName server.example.com” is the name which is used to browse/access the content       in the “/var/www/html” directory.

That’s all about editing the configuration file. Now save and quit the editor.

Step 3: Now create the contents in the default web server’s home directory (index.html)

# vim /var/www/html/index.html

<marquee>

Welcome to server.redhat.com

</marquee>

Now exit the editor.

Step 4: Now check the Selinux context of index.html

The newly created index.html file will not have the selinux context required for web server. So add the policy

# chcon -R --reference=/var/www/html/ /var/www/html/index.html

Check whether it has the right context

# ls -lZ /var/www/html/index.html
-rw-r--r--. root root system_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0 /var/www/html/index.html

Now its ok.

Step 5: Start the daemon

# service httpd start

# chkconfig httpd on  

Step 6: Browse the contents

links <URL> Ex: links http://server.redhat.com