I’ve finally had my work laptop upgraded to Leopard!!! 
As such, I’ve just spent the last couple of days getting things all set-up nicely so that I can get on with my work. Most of the work that I do is web development orientated, and mainly using Perl and Catalyst, so an install of Apache and mod_perl is needed.
OS X does come with a complete install of Apache (even with mod_perl!) out of the box and ready to go (info on using this set-up can be found here), but I’m also working on another project that may involve the use of Jaxer, and this requires a newer build of Apache than the one shipped with Leopard. 
Thankfully building these tools isn’t too complicated, here’s a quick dump of my notes on getting this done. Note, I’m installing them into /usr/local so that I don’t mess with any of the OS X internals that I shouldn’t be touching - this is completely removable.
First, make a work area for building:
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/src sudo chgrp admin /usr/local/src sudo chmod -R 775 /usr/local/src cd /usr/local/src
Apache
curl -O http://apache.mirror.infiniteconflict.com/httpd/httpd-2.2.11.tar.gz tar zxvf httpd-2.2.11.tar.gz cd httpd-2.2.11
Now here’s the big one - the Apache configuration. This compiles a heap of modules I probably don’t need, but it’s nice to have them there in case I do ever need them…
CFLAGS="-O3" CXXFLAGS="-O3" \ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache2 \ --enable-autoindex \ --enable-cache \ --enable-cgi \ --enable-deflate \ --enable-dir \ --enable-disk_cache \ --enable-fastcgi \ --enable-file_cache \ --enable-headers \ --enable-include \ --enable-info \ --enable-log_config \ --enable-log_forensic \ --enable-logio \ --enable-mem_cache \ --enable-mime \ --enable-mime_magic \ --enable-negotiation \ --enable-perl \ --enable-proxy \ --enable-proxy-balancer \ --enable-proxy-http \ --enable-rewrite \ --enable-speling \ --enable-status \ --enable-suexec \ --enable-userdir \ --enable-usertrack \ --enable-version \ --enable-vhost_alias \ --enable-so \ --enable-mods-shared=all
Then the standard make and install:
make make test sudo make install
Now to add some configuration so that Apache starts on system boot, first we need to create a startup script:
cd /System/Library/StartupItems/ sudo mkdir Apache cd Apache sudo touch Apache sudo chmod a+x Apache mate Apache
Paste this content into the file:
#!/bin/sh ## # Apache HTTP Server ## . /etc/rc.common StartService () { ConsoleMessage "Starting Apache web server" /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start } StopService () { ConsoleMessage "Stopping Apache web server" /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl stop } RestartService () { ConsoleMessage "Restarting Apache web server" /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl restart } RunService "$1"
Then a configuration file:
sudo touch StartupParameters.plist mate StartupParameters.plist
Paste this content into the file:
{ Description = "Apache web server"; Provides = ("Web Server"); Requires = ("DirectoryServices"); Uses = ("Disks","Network Time"); OrderPreference = "None"; }
Then reboot and open up http://localhost to make sure things have worked.
Mod Perl
This is a lot more straight forward:
cd /usr/local/src curl -O http://perl.apache.org/dist/mod_perl-2.0-current.tar.gz tar zxvf mod_perl-2.0-current.tar.gz cd mod_perl-2.0.4 perl Makefile.PL MP_AP_PREFIX=/usr/local/apache2 make make test sudo make install
Now all you have to do is add the following line to your Apache httpd.conf (/usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf) with all of the LoadModule entries:
LoadModule perl_module modules/mod_perl.so
All done!
Hey when I do the MOD perl… and i get to the command “perl make file.pl MP_AP_PREFIX=/usr/local/apache2”, terminal gives me this error:
invalid MP_AP_PREFIX: include/ directory not found in /usr/local/apache2
Hi Jon,
I’m not really sure on that one…
Let me know these things and we can start from there. :-S
Thanx for step-by-step instruction
Very clever & clean !