Todd Cary wrote:

> What I understand to be a good approach in setting
> up a system is to start with a good core e.g. RH 9 or FC3 (I started
> with RH 4 some years ago, so I have stuck with them) and install my own
> Apache and customized php.

It is good approach, but it is no necessary. I installed on many
Mandrake and Slackware systems. I just downloaded the PHP source for the
same version as the one that is installed, and compiled interbase.so
extension (configure && make *without* make install). Then I took
interbase.so and copied to PHP extension dir (as seen in php.ini file),
and enabled the support in php.ini.

> In an effort to level the playing field, I downloaded Apache 2.0.54 and
> used the following configuration:
>
> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache2 --enable-module=so

This is just Apache. You need PHP. In fact, if PHP is only a module for
Apache (as it is in most cases), you don't need to compile Apache at all.

> Ran the "make" and "make install". Now it has been configured, made and
> installed. The question is where do I replace the current "httpd" with
> a symbolic link to the new httpd (Apache2)?

Doing "make install" installed your new apache in /usr/local/apache2.
I'm not sure it would be smart idea to symlink the "old" installation.
But if you insist, commands "which httpd" and "whereis httpd" should
give you idea where the current executable is. Then move it to httpd.old
or whatever and create symlink.

AFAIK, the correct way would be to edit startup script to start your new
Apache from /usr/local/apache2 instead of old one. I don't know about
RH, but on Mandrake it is in /etc/init.d/httpd. Just edit and change the
path to server executable. Or, even better, create a copy, named
httpd-new or similar and make startup scripts (/etc/rc.d) run that. This
way you would be able to run both new and old apache installations
independently.

I wrote all this assuming that you wish to have both versions installed.
If that is not the case, then you shouldn't have done
--prefix=/usr/local/apache2 but used the prefix where apache is
currently installed on your system.

> Once that is done, I plan to rebuild php using apxs2.
> Is this the correct approach?

One of.

--
Milan Babuskov
http://fbexport.sourceforge.net
http://www.flamerobin.org