- NAME
- Description
- Installation
- Configuration
- Server Launch and Shutdown
- Registry Scripts
- Handler Modules
- Troubleshooting
- Maintainers
- Authors

# NAME

Getting Your Feet Wet with mod_perl

# Description

This chapter gives you the bare minimum information to get you started with mod_perl 2.0. For most people it's sufficient to get going.

# Installation

If you are a Win32 user, please refer to the Win32 installation document.

First, download the mod_perl 2.0 source.

Before installing mod_perl, you need to check that you have the mod_perl 2.0 prerequisites installed. Apache and the right Perl version have to be built and installed before you can proceed with building mod_perl.

In this chapter we assume that httpd and all helper files were installed under $HOME/httpd/prefork, if your distribution doesn't install all the files under the same tree, please refer to the complete installation instructions.

Now, configure mod_perl:

    % tar -xvzf mod_perl-2.x.xx.tar.gz
    % cd modperl-2.0
    % perl Makefile.PL MP_APXS=$HOME/httpd/prefork/bin/apxs

where `MP_APXS` is the full path to the `apxs` executable, normally found in the same directory as the `httpd` executable, but could be put in a different path as well.

Finally, build, test and install mod_perl:

    % make && make test && make install

Become root before doing `make install` if installing system-wide.

If something goes wrong or you need to enable optional features please refer to the complete installation instructions.

# Configuration

If you are a Win32 user, please refer to the Win32 configuration document.

Enable mod_perl built as DSO, by adding to httpd.conf:

    LoadModule perl_module modules/mod_perl.so

There are many other configuration options which you can find in the configuration manual.

If you want to run mod_perl 1.0 code on mod_perl 2.0 server enable the compatibility layer:

    PerlModule Apache2::compat

For more information see: Migrating from mod_perl 1.0 to mod_perl 2.0.

# Server Launch and Shutdown

Apache is normally launched with `apachectl`:

    % $HOME/httpd/prefork/bin/apachectl start

and shut down with:

    % $HOME/httpd/prefork/bin/apachectl stop

Check $HOME/httpd/prefork/logs/error_log to see that the server has started and it's a right one. It should say something similar to:

    [Fri Jul 22 09:39:55 2005] [notice] Apache/2.0.55-dev (Unix)
    mod_ssl/2.0.55-dev OpenSSL/0.9.7e DAV/2 mod_perl/2.0.2-dev
    Perl/v5.8.7 configured -- resuming normal operations

# Registry Scripts

To enable registry scripts add the following to httpd.conf:

    Alias /perl/ /home/httpd/httpd-2.0/perl/
    <Location /perl/>
        SetHandler perl-script
        PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::Registry
        PerlOptions +ParseHeaders
        Options +ExecCGI
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Location>

and now assuming that we have the following script:

    #!/usr/bin/perl
    print "Content-type: text/plain\n\n";
    print "mod_perl 2.0 rocks!\n";

saved in /home/httpd/httpd-2.0/perl/rock.pl. Make the script executable and readable by everybody:

    % chmod a+rx /home/httpd/httpd-2.0/perl/rock.pl

Of course the path to the script should be readable by the server too. In the real world you probably want to have a tighter permissions, but for the purpose of testing that things are working this is just fine.

Now restart the server and issue a request to http://localhost/perl/rock.pl and you should get the response:

    mod_perl 2.0 rocks!

If that didn't work check the error_log file.

For more information on the registry scripts refer to the `ModPerl::Registry` manpage. (XXX: one day there will a tutorial on registry, should port it from 1.0's docs).

# Handler Modules

Finally check that you can run mod_perl handlers. Let's write a response handler similar to the registry script from the previous section:

     #file:MyApache2/Rocks.pm
     #----------------------
     package MyApache2::Rocks;

     use strict;
     use warnings;

     use Apache2::RequestRec ();
     use Apache2::RequestIO ();

     use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(OK);

     sub handler {
         my $r = shift;

         $r->content_type('text/plain');
         print "mod_perl 2.0 rocks!\n";

         return Apache2::Const::OK;
     }
     1;

Save the code in the file MyApache2/Rocks.pm, somewhere where mod_perl can find it. For example let's put it under /home/httpd/httpd-2.0/perl/MyApache2/Rocks.pm, and we tell mod_perl that /home/httpd/httpd-2.0/perl/ is in `@INC`, via a startup file which includes just:

    use lib qw(/home/httpd/httpd-2.0/perl);
    1;

and loaded from httpd.conf:

    PerlRequire /home/httpd/httpd-2.0/perl/startup.pl

Now we can configure our module in httpd.conf:

    <Location /rocks>
        SetHandler perl-script
        PerlResponseHandler  MyApache2::Rocks
    </Location>

Now restart the server and issue a request to http://localhost/rocks and you should get the response:

    mod_perl 2.0 rocks!

If that didn't work check the error_log file.

# Troubleshooting

If after reading the complete installation and configuration chapters you are still having problems, take a look at the troubleshooting sections. If the problem persist, please report them using the following guidelines.

# Maintainers

Maintainer is the person(s) you should contact with updates, corrections and patches.

- Stas Bekman [http://stason.org/]

# Authors

- Stas Bekman [http://stason.org/]

Only the major authors are listed above. For contributors see the Changes file.