Step 7: Configure the Web Server


  Flag for language en   Flag for language fr 
Use of LXR 0.11 is not recommended, unless you cannot upgrade your Perl interpretor to version 5.10 at least.

This release is frozen and still contains bugs which have been corrected in later releases. Only "compatibility" bugs will be accepted.

The last task is to configure your web server. Instructions below are given for Apache and lighttpd servers.

Apache web server

INSTALL document in previous versions of LXR told to edit httpd.conf. This presents serious drawbacks. A better approach is taken with 0.11 release. The pre-configuration step created a lxrconf.d/apache-lxrserver.conf to be copied into /etc/httpd/conf.d/. It is automatically read at server initialisation and merged with httpd.conf. Whenever the server software is updated, all you have to do is store again this file in the /etc/httpd/conf.d/ directory.

Access to the /etc/httpd/conf.d/ directory requires root privileges.

Copy the file to the Apache configuration directory:

$ cp lxrconf.d/apache-lxrserver.conf /etc/httpd/conf.d This file is valid both for Apache version 1.x and version 2.x.

The "per-directory" configuration file .htaccess has been created by the pre-configuration step and is already stored in the LXR root directory. Edit it to enable directory listing or apply other personal preferences.

  • Apache version 1.x

    mod_perl for Apache 1.x accesses only the system Perl library. Consequently, you must copy LXR private library there:

    $ cp -r lib/LXR/* /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/

lighttpd web server

Pre-configuration step created a lxrconf.d/lighttpd-lxrserver.conf to be used as the configuration file basis for LXR. Review and edit this file.

lighttpd operation is module-oriented: the needed modules must be loaded by the configuration file. A minimal set of modules is listed in file templates/lighttpd/lighttpd-lxr-modules.conf. If more modules are needed, copy file lighttpd-lxr-modules.conf to lxrconf.d/ directory, edit it and change a directive in the configuration file. Scroll down to section Load the modules to check the include directive.

include "/LXR_root_directory/lxrconf.d/lighttpd-lxr-modules.conf"

LXR-specific configuration is located at the end of the file in LXR section.

Uncomment $HTTP directive. Duplicate it for as many host names you defined. Replace string host_name by your host names. Example:

$HTTP["host"] == "192.168.1.1" { server.document-root = "/usr/local/share/lxr/" }

Check the configuration file:

$ lighttpd -t -f lxrconf.d/lighttpd-lxrserver.conf

Launch lighttpd web server.

  • for single user service $ lighttpd -D -f lxrconf.d/lighttpd-lxrserver.conf

    Type ctl-C to stop lighttpd.

  • for system-wide service (on a single line) $ LIGHTTPD_CONF_PATH="/path/to/lxr/lxrconf.d/lighttpd-lxrserver.conf" \ ./scripts/lighttpd-init start

    To stop lighttpd, type:

    $ ./scripts/lighttpd-init stop
If you already operate a lighttpd server, merging LXR with global configuration is left to you as an exercice.

In case you later encounter difficulties with SELinux

(security alerts related to the LXR root directory)

Scripts and their directories must be specifically labeled to identify them as executing code as a "normal" context. This is routinely done when they are located in /var/www/cgi-bin/. To eliminate alerts, the most reliable method is to clone /var/www/cgi-bin/ context with the following command:

$ chcon --reference /var/www/cgi-bin -R LXR_root_directory/

Fire up your webbrowser and go to http://localhost/lxr/source. You should see the content of the directory of the default version for your tree.