<!doctype linuxdoc system>
<article>
<title>Linux Apache SSL PHP/FI frontpage mini-HOWTO
<author>Marcus Faure, <htmlurl url="mailto:marcus@faure.de" 
                              name="marcus@faure.de">
<date>v1.1, July 1998

<abstract>
This document is about building a <bf>multipurpose webserver</bf> that will 
support dynamic web content via the <bf>PHP/FI</bf> scripting language,
secure transmission of data based on Netscape's <bf>SSL</BF>,
secure execution of <bf>CGI's</bf> and
M$ <bf>Frontpage Server Extensions</bf>
</abstract>

<toc>

<sect>Introduction
<p>
Before you start reading:
I am not a native speaker, so there are probably spelling/grammatical errors
in this document. Feel encouraged to inform me of mistakes.

<sect1>Description of the components
<p>
The webserver you hopefully will get after having read this howto is composed
of several parts, the original apache sources with some (well, many) patches 
and some external executables. I recommend using the software versions I 
tried, they will probably compile without greater problems and result in a 
fairly stable daemon. If you are courageous, you can try to compile all the 
latest-stuff-with-tons-of-new-features, but  don't blame me if something 
fails ;-). However, you may report other working configurations to be included
in future versions of this document. All of the steps were tested on a 
linux 2.0.35 box, so the howto is somewhat linux-specific, but you should be 
able to use it for other unixes as well.

You do not necesserily have to compile in all components. I tried to structure
this howto so that you can skip the parts you are not interested in.

The document is neither a user manual to Apache, SSL, PHP/FI nor frontpage.
Its prime intention is to save webservice providers some headaches when 
installing their server and to do my little contribution to the linux
community.

<bf>PHP</bf> is a scripting language that supports dynamic HTML pages. It is a
bit like Apache's SSI, but by far more complex and has database modules for
many popular dbs. The GD libraries are needed by PHP.

<bf>SSL</bf> is an implementation of Netscape's Secure Socket Layer that allow
secure connections over insecure networks, e.g. to transmit credit card
numbers to web based forms.

<bf>frontpage</bf> is a wysiwyg web authoring tool that makes use of some
server-specific extensions called webbots. Some people think frontpage is
cool because you can create feedback forms and discussion webs without
having to know a bit about html or cgi. It even protects the designer
from uploading his/her site via ftp by using a builtin publisher. If you wish 
to support frontpage but do not like to setup a windows server, the apache 
server extensions are your choice.

<sect1>Working configurations
<p>
Though this document has been downloaded some 100 times since I published
it, I received only little feedback. In particular, noone told me of other 
working combinations. Combinations that work for me are:
<itemize>
<item>Linux 2.0.31, Apache 1.2.4, PHP 2.0.0, SSL 0.8.0, fp 98 3.0.3 (*)
<item>Linux 2.0.33, Apache 1.2.5, PHP 2.0.1, SSL 0.8.0, fp 98 3.0.3 (*)
<item>Linux 2.0.35, Apache 1.2.6, PHP 3, SSL 0.8.0, fp 98 3.0.4
</itemize>
(*) version 3.0.3 is <ref id="fpverswarning" name="not recommended"> 

<sect1>History
<p>

v0.0/Apr 98:	Preview version

v1.0/Jun 98:	Now using Apache 1.2.6, updated fp section, minor corrections

v1.1/Jul 98:	Sgmlized and restructered version

You can find the latest version of this document at
<url url="http://www.faure.de">

<sect>Component installation

<sect1>Preparations
<p>
You will need:
<itemize>
<item>Apache 1.2.6 <url url="http://www.apache.org/dist/apache_1_2_6.tar.gz">
<item>PHP/FI Extensions 
 <url url="http://php.iquest.net/files/download.phtml?/files/php-2.01.tar.gz">
<item>GD Library <url url="http://siva.cshl.org/gd/gd.html">
<item>SSL 0.8.0 
 <url url="ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/SSL/SSLeay-0.8.0.tar.gz">
<item>SSL patch for Apache 1.2.6
 <url url="ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/SSL/apache_1.2.6+ssl_1.17.tar.gz">
<item>frontpage 98 server extensions and install script
 <url url="http://www.rtr.com/fpsupport/download.htm">
</itemize>

Get the sources you want. Untar apche, php, gd and ssl to
<tt>/usr/src</tt>. Untar the SSL patch to <tt>/usr/src/apache_1.2.6</tt>.

<sect1>Adding PHP
<p>
<tt>cd</tt> to /usr/src/gd1.2 and type make. This will build the GD
library <tt>libgd.a</tt>, that should be copied to <tt>/usr/lib</tt>.
Now <tt>cd</tt> to <tt>php-2.0.1</tt> and run <tt>./install</tt>.

The relevant questions are:
<verb>
Would you like to compile PHP/FI as an Apache module? [yN] y
Are you compiling for an Apache 1.1 or later server? [Yn] y
Are you using Apache-Stronghold? [yN] y
Does your Apache server support ELF dynamic loading? [yN] y
Apache include directory (which has httpd.h)? [/usr/local/include/apache] /usr/src/apache_1.2.6/src
Would you like to build an ELF shared library? [yN] y
Additional directories to search for .h files []: /usr/src/gd1.2
Would you like the bundled regex library? [yN] n
</verb>

Like the frontpage extensions, phtml includes a security problem
because it is run under the uid of the webserver. Be sure to turn on safe
mode in src/php.h and restrict the search path to a save value. There are some
other options in php.h you may want to edit. If you are very concerned
about security, compile php as a cgi. However, this will be a performance
loss and not as smart as the module version.

Type <tt>make</tt> to build all files. When the compilation is done,
copy <tt>mod_php.*</tt> and <tt>libphp.a</tt> to
<tt>/usr/src/apache_1.2.6/src</tt> Add a line
<verb>
Module php_module mod_php.o 
</verb>
to the end of <tt>/usr/src/apache_1.2.6/src/Configuration</tt>, add 
<verb>
-lphp -lm -lgdbm -lgd    
</verb>
to the <tt>EXTRA_LIBS</tt> in the same file,
<verb>
application/x-httpd-php phtml 
</verb>
to Apache's <tt>mime.types</tt> and
<verb>
AddType  application/x-httpd-php .phtml
</verb>
to Apache's <tt>srm.conf</tt>. 

You may also want to add <tt>index.phtml</tt> to <tt>DirectoryIndex</tt> in
that file so that a file index.phtml is automatically loaded when its
directory is requested.

<sect1>Adding SSL
<p>
<tt>cd /usr/src/SSL-0.8.0; ./Configure linux-elf; make; make rehash</tt>
This will create libraries needed by apache. You may issue <tt>make test</tt>
to verify the compilation.
You have to apply a patch to apache. It is important that you apply it
before the frontpage patch, otherwise frontpage will not work. 
<tt>cd</tt> to <tt>/usr/src/apache_1.2.6/src</tt> and issue 
<tt>patch < /usr/src/apache_1.2.6/SSLpatch</tt>.
Set <tt>SSL_BASE=/usr/src/SSLeay-0.8.0</tt> in <tt>Configuration</tt>. Make
sure that <tt>Module proxy_module</tt> is disabled otherwise Apache won't
compile. If you are in need of a proxy, go for Squid
<htmlurl url="http://squid.nlanr.net/" name="http://squid.nlanr.net/">

Now <tt>make certificate</tt> to generate <tt>SSLconf/conf/httpsd.pem</tt>.

<sect1>Adding frontpage
<p>
Rename the <tt>fp30.linux.tar.Z</tt> file to <tt>fp30.linux.tar.gz</tt>,
otherwise the install script will not find it. Run <tt>./fp_install</tt>
to copy the extension files to <tt>/usr/local/frontpage</tt>. zcat can
usually be invoked as /usr/bin/zcat.

You now have to apply the FP patch. <tt>cd</tt> to
<tt>/usr/src/apache_1.2.6/src</tt> and type
<tt>patch < /usr/src/frontpage/version3.0/apache-fp/fp-patch-apache_1.2.5</tt>
This will create the <tt>mod_frontpage.*</tt> files and do some modifications
to <tt>Configuration</tt> etc. The 1.2.5 patch will work with both
apache 1.2.5 and 1.2.6. Skip the part about installing webs, you can do
that later

<sect>Putting it all together

<sect1>Apache modules to try
<p>
The modules I use besides SSL, PHP and frontpage are:
<verb>
Module env_module          mod_env.o
Module config_log_module   mod_log_config.o
Module mime_module         mod_mime.o
Module negotiation_module  mod_negotiation.o
Module dir_module          mod_dir.o
Module cgi_module          mod_cgi.o
Module asis_module         mod_asis.o
Module imap_module         mod_imap.o
Module action_module       mod_actions.o
Module alias_module        mod_alias.o
Module rewrite_module      mod_rewrite.o
Module access_module       mod_access.o
Module auth_module         mod_auth.o
Module anon_auth_module    mod_auth_anon.o
Module digest_module       mod_digest.o
Module expires_module      mod_expires.o
Module headers_module      mod_headers.o
Module browser_module      mod_browser.o
</verb>

<sect1>Giving CGI's more security
<p>
If you are an ISP (you probably are when you read this) you will 
want to improve security. The suexec utility allows you to do so; it will
execute cgi's under the UID of the webowner instead of executing it 
under the webservers UID. 
Go to <tt>/usr/src/apache_1.2.6/support</tt> and <tt>make suexec</tt>.
<tt>chmod 4711 suxec</tt> and copy it to the location specified in
<tt>../src/httpd.h</tt> which is <tt>/usr/local/etc/httpd/sbin/suexec</tt>
by default. If the path seems a little cryptic to you - it did to me - edit
<tt>httpd.h</tt> and set the path to a more comfortable value. 

<sect1>Compiling and installing the server daemon
<p>
Enter <tt>/usr/src/apache_1.2.6/src</tt> and edit
<tt>Configuration</tt> to set all the Modules you want to include in your
Apache daemon. When done, run <tt>./Configure</tt> and <tt>make</tt>. This is
the last (and most complicated) compilation step, so cross your fingers. If it
succeeds, <tt>cp httpsd</tt> to <tt>/usr/sbin</tt>. The daemon is somewhat
big, consider this when assembling your webserver. Create the directory
<tt>/var/httpd</tt> with subdirectories <tt>cgi-bin</tt>, <tt>conf</tt>,
<tt>htdocs</tt>, <tt>icons</tt>, <tt>virt1</tt>, <tt>virt2</tt> and
<tt>logs</tt>. In <tt>/usr/src/apache_1.2.6/conf</tt> edit
<tt>access.conf-dist</tt>, <tt>mime.types</tt> and <tt>srm.conf-dist</tt>
to suit your needs and copy them to <tt>var/httpd/conf/access.conf</tt>,
<tt>srm.conf</tt> and <tt>mime.types</tt>. Copy the <tt>httpsd.pem</tt> you
created with <tt>make certificate</tt> to <tt>/var/httpd/conf</tt>. Use the
following <tt>httpd.conf</tt>:
<verb>
ServerType standalone
Port 80
Listen 80
Listen 443
User wwwrun
Group wwwrun
ServerAdmin webmaster@yourhost.com
ServerRoot /var/httpd
ErrorLog logs/error_log
TransferLog logs/access_log
PidFile logs/httpd.pid
ServerName www.yourhost.com
MinSpareServers 3
MaxSpareServers 20
StartServers 3

SSLCACertificatePath /var/httpd/conf
SSLCACertificateFile /var/httpd/conf/httpsd.pem
SSLCertificateFile /var/httpd/conf/httpsd.pem
SSLLogFile /var/httpd/logs/ssl.log
 
&lt;VirtualHost www.virt1.com&gt;
SSLDisable
ServerAdmin webmaster@virt1.com
DocumentRoot /var/httpd/virt1
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/httpd/virt1/cgi-bin/
ServerName www.virt1.com
ErrorLog logs/virt1-error.log
TransferLog logs/virt1-access.log
User virt1admin
Group users
&lt;/VirtualHost&gt;

&lt;VirtualHost www.virt1.com:443&gt;
ServerAdmin webmaster@virt1.com
DocumentRoot /var/httpd/virt1
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/httpd/virt1/cgi-bin/
ServerName www.virt1.com
ErrorLog logs/virt1-ssl-error.log
TransferLog logs/virt1-ssl-access.log
User virt1admin
Group users
SSLCACertificatePath /var/httpd/conf
SSLCACertificateFile /var/httpd/conf/httpsd.pem
SSLCertificateFile /var/httpd/conf/httpsd.pem
SSLLogFile /var/httpd/logs/virt1-ssl.log
SSLVerifyClient 0
SSLFakeBasicAuth
&lt;/VirtualHost&gt;

&lt;VirtualHost www.virt2.com&gt;
SSLDisable
ServerAdmin webmaster@virt2.com
DocumentRoot /var/httpd/virt2
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/httpd/virt2/cgi-bin/
ServerName www.virt2.com
ErrorLog logs/virt2-error.log
TransferLog logs/virt2-access.log
&lt;/VirtualHost&gt;
</verb>

Depending on the modules compiled in, not all directives may be available.
You can retrieve a list of available directives with <tt>httpsd -h</tt>.

<sect1>Adding frontpage support to a web
<p>
Enter <tt>/usr/local/frontpage/version3.0/bin</tt> and load
<tt>./fpsrvadm</tt>. Choose <tt>install</tt> and <tt>apache-fp</tt>. The next
questions should be answered the following way:
<verb>
Enter server config filename: /var/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Enter host name for multi-hosting []: www.virt2.com
Starting install, port: www.virt2.com:80, web: ""
Enter user's name []: virt2admin
Enter user's password:
Confirm password:
Creating root web
Recalculate links for root web
Install completed.
</verb>

The user name must be the unix login of the webowner. The password does not
necessarily have to match the system password. 
You have to manually add <tt>sendmailcommand:/usr/sbin/sendmail %r</tt>
to <tt>/usr/local/frontpage/www.virt2.com:80.conf</tt>, otherwise your users
will not be able to send web-generated eMails.
<tt>kill -HUP</tt> your <tt>httpsd</tt> to make fp reread its config. You can
now access <tt>www.virt2.com</tt> with your frontpage client.

Under some circumstances <tt>fpsrvadm</tt> complaints that a root web has
to be installed first. This is pretty useless, but you should do so to silence
<tt>fpsrvadm</tt>.

<sect1>Starting the daemon
<p>
Start Apache with <tt>httpsd -f /var/httpd/conf/httpd.conf</tt>. You can
now access <tt>www.virt1.com</tt> both through http and https which is pretty
cool. Of course you have to pay for a real certificate if you want to offer
webwide SSL or users might laugh at you. 

Copy one of the demo files from the php examples directory to <tt>virt1</tt>
to test phtml.

<sect1>Some considerations left
<p>
Do not use frontpage 97 extensions. They do not work, at least under
Linux. When installing specific versions of the c++ libraries, they 
appear to work but your logs will soon fill with <tt>premature end of script
headers</tt> and your mailbox will fill with complaints. 
Do not use frontpage 98 extensions before version 3.0.2.1330. Do not be
confused, version numbers are somewhat inheterogenous. When telnetting
to port 80, typing "get / http/1.0" and hitting return twice, you get a
version number 3.0.4 for frontpage.

<label id="fpverswarning">You can find out the more specific version 
number by executing
<tt>/usr/local/frontpage/currentversion/exes/_vti_bin/shtml.exe -version</tt>.
Older versions have a nasty bug that requires httpd.conf to be writable
by the gid of the webserver. This should make you scream if you are at all
concerned about security.
Versions since 3.0.2.1330 are more usable.

<sect1>Known bugs
<p>
When touching <tt>Recalculate Links</tt> in the frontpage client, the server 
starts a process that consumes 99% cpu cycles and some 10 mb of memory. But 
even for medium-sized webs and fast machines, the client sometimes recieves 
a timeout message, though the calculation will be finished correctly. Inform 
frontpage users to be patient and not to hit <tt>Recalculate Links</tt> 
several times. Inform yourself to equip the server with at least 64MB.

Please note that at the time of writing both SSL and frontpage work, but
not at the same time, that means you can neither publish your web using ssl
nor make use of the webbots through https. You can publish your web on
port 80 and access it encrypted on port 443, but your counters etc. will be
broken. I consider this a bug. This problem shall be fixed in SSL 0.9.0.

<sect1>The final word
<p>
For those who think the title of this howto is nearly as long as the
document: Did you ever listened to Meat Loaf?

O.K. readers, you're done for today. Feel free to send me your feedback, 
eternal gratitude, flowers, ecash, cars, oil sources etc.

</article>


