Setting Up an HTTP Server

To set up a Web server, such as NCSA httpd, you'll need to:

Get a copy of the software, either as a pre-compiled binary or as source code to compile.
Configure the server:
- Edit httpd.conf, to set the User to something valid (nobody is good, if it exists on your system), ServerRoot (if you put the server in a different location), ServerAdmin (e.g. www@your.domain), and ServerName (e.g. www.your.domain).
- Edit srm.conf, the server resource configuration file, to set the DocumentRoot (if not the default), UserDir (e.g. to DISABLED), Alias and ScriptAlias (if not the default, or if you add directories), or to add additional file types or encodings.
- Edit access.conf, to adjust directory names (as above), remove Indexes on the Options list for cgi-bin, and add or remove any other options, overrides, or access limits.
If you want to use gateway programs, select the CGI scripts you want to install.
Move the server and required support files into place.
Create some HTML documents, including a top-level index.
Start the server running, and set up the system startup files (e.g. /etc/rc.local) to restart it automatically on reboot.