Apache Web Development on Cygwin

I'm trying to get an Apache server running on my Cygwin setup to follow the Java Ranch Cattle Drive tutorials online (basically, to learn Java EE web page developm开发者_开发知识库ent that uses a MySQL back end.)

I used the Cygwin Setup program to install httpd (which is how I installed most other dev tools I use on cygwin) and it says install complete, yet when I run 'httpd' it cannot find the command. It also appears the expected install directory (/usr/local/apache...) doesn't exist.

Does anyone have any experience using this setup, and if so, you could walk me through the initial steps of getting the server up and running and getting a browser to display the server's default page?

To keep answers focused, I didn't want to discus the drawbacks of running Apache on a Windows system - this is just for learning purposes. Thanks in advance.

Looking at the Cygwin Package Listing for httpd, you can see that the executable is installed under /usr/sbin.

So, if /usr/sbin is not on your PATH (it isn't on mine, not by default anyhow), you would actually run:

/usr/sbin/httpd

And btw, if you would like to list the files installed for a certain package, you can use cygcheck:

cygcheck -l httpd

cygrunsrv -I Apache -p /usr/sbin/httpd -a "-X"

This will solve the problem. This assumes you already have cyrunsrv set up. The reason httpd fails with cygrunsrv if you leave out the -X is that the process disconnects from the terminal and cygrunsrv considers that a failure. The -X option for httpd is the debug or terminal mode.

I couldn't find any detailed information on how to get Apache working on Cygwin, so here it is if someone's interested:

• Install the httpd-* and httpd-mod_* packages you need. Note that the packages named "Apache" are deprecated. You need the ones named "httpd" (which are actually Apache).
• Install cygrunsrv (normally this is a default Cygwin package)
• Run /usr/bin/cygserver-config as admin. This is needed because Apache requires an IPC server running.
• Open services.msc, then go to the CYGWIN Cygserver. Right-click on it and start it. If you don't do this, you'll probably get errors like "AH00023: Couldn't create the proxy mutex".
• Finally, start Apache by running /usr/sbin/apachectl restart

Config is in /etc/httpd/.

Some information about running Apache on Cygwin:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/cygwin.html

http://www.issociate.de/board/goto/895433/apache2_does_not_start_in_cygwin.html

http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2005-02/msg00085.html

Personally, I would recommend installing WAMPServer or other WAMP stack and do it that way. There is no difference, except that you'll need to control Apache through Windows commands [net start, net stop], not Cygwin's ones.