New user setting up Apache

Hi There, I am new to Apache, PHP, MySQL etc and I am trying to set up Apache. I have been using PWS but shut it down and try to run Apache. The install seemed to go fine and I can start the server, but that is about it. BTW it is on a PC. I don't know what to say so I am guessing that questions would be welcomed and I will answer them, thanks very much in advance

Well, if you can successfully start the server the rest is pretty much up to you. Apache is not like the Microsoft PWS or IIS as it does not come with a GUI tool for administration. A good place to start is reading through the httpd.conf file. This is the actual configuration file for the Apache server so any changes you make to it will effect your server. (I think Apache comes with a back up of the original, but you may want to make one before you mess with it just to be safe.) This file has pretty good comments about each configuration setting, and it's a good place to get your feet wet. If you want to do something specific after reading through this, start a new thread here and I'm sure someone will be able to help.

Thanks for that, I have had a good look through the httpd file, and made changes I needed to but will look a little more extensively, thanks.

I am still completey lost here. FYI I am using W2K Pro, I have looked and read and I am still lost on what to do, maybe I could e-mail my httpd.conf file to look at?

What exactly are you lost on?

What do you want to do with the server?

If you just want to view some HTML pages for starters, simply add the HTML pages to the "htdocs" directory and enter the URL in your browser. For example:

http://myMachine:81/myPage.html

I have an html document sitting in C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache\htdocs\test.html When I type the url I get the 'Page cannot be displayed'. What I type is this http://localhost/test.html and have tried the following as well http://localhost:80/test.html http://127.0.0.1:80/test.html http://127.0.0.1/test.html etc. I am suspecting that I may not have set up a virtual host correctly, below is a copy and paste of part of my httpd.conf file

### Section 3: Virtual Hosts
#
# VirtualHost: If you want to maintain multiple domains/hostnames on your
# machine you can setup VirtualHost containers for them.
# Please see the documentation at <URL:http://www.apache.org/docs/vhosts/>
# for further details before you try to setup virtual hosts.
# You may use the command line option '-S' to verify your virtual host
# configuration.

#
# If you want to use name-based virtual hosts you need to define at
# least one IP address (and port number) for them.
#
#NameVirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80
#NameVirtualHost 12.34.56.78

#
# VirtualHost example:
# Almost any Apache directive may go into a VirtualHost container.
#
#<VirtualHost ip.address.of.host.some_domain.com>
# ServerAdmin webmaster@host.some_domain.com
# DocumentRoot /www/docs/host.some_domain.com
# ServerName host.some_domain.com
# ErrorLog logs/host.some_domain.com-error_log
# CustomLog logs/host.some_domain.com-access_log common
#</VirtualHost>

#<VirtualHost _default_:*>
#</VirtualHost>

Please don't laugh if I am way out here as some of this seems a little gibberish to me as I have never had to do this before, thanks so much for your help.

SEAN.

First of all, I don't think you need to set up a virtual host just yet. As the first line of the Virtual Hosts section states:

# VirtualHost: If you want to maintain multiple domains/hostnames on your
# machine you can setup VirtualHost containers for them.

Second, in order to make any changes take effect, you need to uncomment the lines by removing the "#" sign at the beginning of the line. (You may have already known that, but the sample you included did not have any uncommented lines in it.)

Third, did you try accessing the URL with the machine name instead of localhost and 127.0.0.1? EG - http://myMachine/test.html

Let me know if that helps at all.

I am still lost, I have typed http://localhost/test.html and http://127.0.0.1/test.html etc etc but I always get the document not found message. Basically I cannot obtain any html docs sitting in my htdocs directory when I type the URL address, I don't know what to do. When I start Apache server I do not get any errors. I have been getting confused with the instructions, maybe you could help or point me to a good tutorial although the help menu seems quite expansive, I am not too sure what I should be looking for thanks for your help...it is appreciated.

I would take a look at:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/
and
http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ri...pport&id=12&hub

for starters. Are you able to see the default index page that comes with Apache by going to http://myMachine? Also, is Apache running on a port other than 80? If it is you'll need to provide that in the URL as well (EG - http://myMachine:85). You can find the port that Apache is using by searching the httpd.conf file for the port directive. If you haven't already, check the logs in the "logs" directory to make sure there are not any problems with the server itself.

Thanks heaps for your help it was a very helpful command in the manual of course I had my port settings wrong. I assumed Apache had started since there were no errors but it had not until I found a command to test ports that were in use and the set the port directives after that, thanks for your patience and for steering me in the right direction