11 Confirming the Apache Install

A test should be carried out to make sure Apache has been correctly installed. Fire up your favourite text editor and open up the file, /path/to/installed/apache/conf/httpd.conf. For example, /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf.

Search for the following:

#Listen 3000
#Listen 12.34.56.78:80

The Listen directive notifies the Apache server of the IP address address and port number that it should listen on for request. For SSL requests, this is usually port 443. However, if mod_ssl was installed, something similar will be within the httpd.conf file:

<IfDefine SSL>
Listen 80
Listen 443
</IfDefine>

One should leave those lines commented out, but also add Listen 127.0.0.1:80 directly underneath. Also, one should change the ServerName directive to ServerName 127.0.0.1.

127.0.0.1 can be changed to an IP address to any IP address from the network the server is on. However, it is always easiest to use 127.0.0.1 to test the Apache server install, as one can confirm Apache is running on the server itself, instead of running into any network configuration problems, if any.

Subsections

11.1 Starting the Apache Server