Keywords: Host a Local web-site on Linux/Ubuntu , how to install boa
If you want to Host a Local web-site on Linux/Ubuntu machine, you need to install a web-server that can serve your web-site’s pages. There are many free small web-server’s available like:
-
Boa
-
Apache
-
Lighthttpd
-
Nginx etc. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_lightweight_web_server
In this post I’ll show, how to install boa as I personally like it because of it’s light weight and fast processing.
Step 1: Go to http://www.boa.org and download the latest version.
Step 2: Go to the location where you downloaded the package.
$ cd <location of downloaded boa package>
Step 3: Unpack it by giving following command:
$
tar -xvzf boa-0.94.tar.gz
Step 4: Copy un-packed directory to your preferd location. Let’s assume it’s ‘/home’ for this tutorial. So path for your boa directory will be ‘/home/boa-0.94’
Step 5: Now go into ‘src’ directory and open define.h file.
$ cd /home/boa-0.94/src
$ gedit define.h
Step 6: Change the default SERVER_ROOT by setting the #define at the top of defines.h
SERVER_ROOT = /home/boa-0.94/
Step 7: Go to parent directory(/home/boa-0.94/) and create following files and directory:
- access_log 2.error_log -> files
- www
Step 8: Type ./configure and then make.
$ ./configure
$ make
Step 9: Copy boa.conf file from ‘examples’ to parent directory and open it using gedit.
$ cp /home/boa-0.94/examples/boa.conf /home/boa-0.94/
$ gedit boa.conf
Copy following text and replace it with boa.conf.
# Boa v0.94 configuration file # File format has not changed from 0.93 # File format has changed little from 0.92 # version changes are noted in the comments # # The Boa configuration file is parsed with a lex/yacc or flex/bison # generated parser. If it reports an error, the line number will be # provided; it should be easy to spot. The syntax of each of these # rules is very simple, and they can occur in any order. Where possible # these directives mimic those of NCSA httpd 1.3; I saw no reason to # introduce gratuitous differences. # $Id: boa.conf,v 1.25 2002/03/22 04:33:09 jnelson Exp $ # The “ServerRoot” is not in this configuration file. It can be compiled # into the server (see defines.h) or specified on the command line with # the -c option, for example: # # boa -c /usr/local/boa # Port: The port Boa runs on. The default port for http servers is 80. # If it is less than 1024, the server must be started as root. Port 80 # Listen: the Internet address to bind(2) to. If you leave it out, # it takes the behavior before 0.93.17.2, which is to bind to all # addresses (INADDR_ANY). You only get one “Listen” directive, # if you want service on multiple IP addresses, you have three choices: # 1. Run boa without a “Listen” directive # a. All addresses are treated the same; makes sense if the addresses # are localhost, ppp, and eth0. # b. Use the VirtualHost directive below to point requests to different # files. Should be good for a very large number of addresses (web # hosting clients). # 2. Run one copy of boa per IP address, each has its own configuration # with a “Listen” directive. No big deal up to a few tens of addresses. # Nice separation between clients. # The name you provide gets run through inet_aton(3), so you have to use dotted # quad notation. This configuration is too important to trust some DNS. #Listen 192.68.0.5 # User: The name or UID the server should run as. # Group: The group name or GID the server should run as. User sachin Group sachin # ServerAdmin: The email address where server problems should be sent. # Note: this is not currently used, except as an environment variable # for CGIs. #ServerAdmin root@localhost # ErrorLog: The location of the error log file. If this does not start # with /, it is considered relative to the server root. # Set to /dev/null if you don’t want errors logged. # If unset, defaults to /dev/stderr ErrorLog /home/boa-0.94/error_log # Please NOTE: Sending the logs to a pipe (‘|’), as shown below, # is somewhat experimental and might fail under heavy load. # “Usual libc implementations of printf will stall the whole # process if the receiving end of a pipe stops reading.” #ErrorLog “|/usr/sbin/cronolog –symlink=/var/log/boa/error_log /var/log/boa/error-%Y%m%d.log” # AccessLog: The location of the access log file. If this does not # start with /, it is considered relative to the server root. # Comment out or set to /dev/null (less effective) to disable # Access logging. AccessLog /home/boa-0.94/access_log # Please NOTE: Sending the logs to a pipe (‘|’), as shown below, # is somewhat experimental and might fail under heavy load. # “Usual libc implementations of printf will stall the whole # process if the receiving end of a pipe stops reading.” #AccessLog “|/usr/sbin/cronolog –symlink=/var/log/boa/access_log /var/log/boa/access-%Y%m%d.log” # UseLocaltime: Logical switch. Uncomment to use localtime # instead of UTC time #UseLocaltime # VerboseCGILogs: this is just a logical switch. # It simply notes the start and stop times of cgis in the error log # Comment out to disable. #VerboseCGILogs # ServerName: the name of this server that should be sent back to # clients if different than that returned by gethostname + gethostbyname #ServerName www.your.org.here # VirtualHost: a logical switch. # Comment out to disable. # Given DocumentRoot /var/www, requests on interface ‘A’ or IP ‘IP-A’ # become /var/www/IP-A. # Example: http://localhost/ becomes /var/www/127.0.0.1 # # Not used until version 0.93.17.2. This “feature” also breaks commonlog # output rules, it prepends the interface number to each access_log line. # You are expected to fix that problem with a postprocessing script. #VirtualHost # DocumentRoot: The root directory of the HTML documents. # Comment out to disable server non user files. DocumentRoot /home/boa-0.94/www # UserDir: The name of the directory which is appended onto a user’s home # directory if a ~user request is recieved. UserDir public_html # DirectoryIndex: Name of the file to use as a pre-written HTML # directory index. Please MAKE AND USE THESE FILES. On the # fly creation of directory indexes can be _slow_. # Comment out to always use DirectoryMaker DirectoryIndex index.html # DirectoryMaker: Name of program used to create a directory listing. # Comment out to disable directory listings. If both this and # DirectoryIndex are commented out, accessing a directory will give # an error (though accessing files in the directory are still ok). #DirectoryMaker /home/boa-0.94/boa_indexer # DirectoryCache: If DirectoryIndex doesn’t exist, and DirectoryMaker # has been commented out, the the on-the-fly indexing of Boa can be used # to generate indexes of directories. Be warned that the output is # extremely minimal and can cause delays when slow disks are used. # Note: The DirectoryCache must be writable by the same user/group that # Boa runs as. # DirectoryCache /var/spool/boa/dircache # KeepAliveMax: Number of KeepAlive requests to allow per connection # Comment out, or set to 0 to disable keepalive processing #KeepAliveMax 1000 KeepAliveMax 30 # KeepAliveTimeout: seconds to wait before keepalive connection times out KeepAliveTimeout 10 # MimeTypes: This is the file that is used to generate mime type pairs # and Content-Type fields for boa. # Set to /dev/null if you do not want to load a mime types file. # Do *not* comment out (better use AddType!) MimeTypes /etc/mime.types # DefaultType: MIME type used if the file extension is unknown, or there # is no file extension. DefaultType text/plain # CGIPath: The value of the $PATH environment variable given to CGI progs. CGIPath /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin/perl # SinglePostLimit: The maximum allowable number of bytes in # a single POST. Default is normally 1MB. # AddType: adds types without editing mime.types # Example: AddType type extension [extension …] # Uncomment the next line if you want .cgi files to execute from anywhere AddType application/x-httpd-cgi cgi AddType application/x-httpd-jsp jsp # Redirect, Alias, and ScriptAlias all have the same semantics — they # match the beginning of a request and take appropriate action. Use # Redirect for other servers, Alias for the same server, and ScriptAlias # to enable directories for script execution. # Redirect allows you to tell clients about documents which used to exist in # your server’s namespace, but do not anymore. This allows you to tell the # clients where to look for the relocated document. # Example: Redirect /bar http://elsewhere/feh/bar # Aliases: Aliases one path to another. # Example: Alias /path1/bar /path2/foo Alias /doc /usr/doc # ScriptAlias: Maps a virtual path to a directory for serving scripts # Example: ScriptAlias /htbin/ /www/htbin/ ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /home/boa-0.94/www/ |
Step 10: Locate follwing lines in this file and replace them with your user name. Save it and close it.
User sachin -> change sachin to your user name
Group sachin-> change sachin to your user name
Step 11: Download files attached here. Un-tar them and copy them to '/home/boa-0.94/www/'
Step 12: Go to ‘src’ directory and give following command .
$ sudo ./boa
If no error then you web-server has started. Now time to check it.
Step 13. Open your internet browser and type following in the address bar:
Step 14: If you are on LAN/WLAN then by accessing your system’s ip, everbody on the LAN/WLAN can see your web-site.
For example: http://192.168.0.173 Enter
If you see a page like following pic then Congrats..!! You have installed boa web-server and hosted your first local web-site on Linux/Ubuntu machine… 🙂
Note: If you get any error regarding lex/yacc or flex/bison please install one of them before running the web-server.
$sudo apt-get install flex
$sudo apt-get install bison
or
$sudo apt-get install lex
$sudo apt-get install yacc
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