Installing apache mod_fastcgi(fastcgi module) on CentOS 5

In the previous post, I have written about installing apache mod_fcgid module to enable fastcgi support on apache. This time, I will write on how to install mod_fastcgi module to enable fastcgi module on apache installed on CentOS 5. Since by the time of this writing, there is no rpm for apache mod_fastcgi, we have to compile the mod_fastcgi module.

1. Install requirements for compilation

# yum install httpd-devel apr apr-devel libtool

2. Download latest mod_fastcgi source code

# cd /opt
# wget http://www.fastcgi.com/dist/mod_fastcgi-current.tar.gz

3. Untar the package.

# tar -xvzf mod_fastcgi-current.tar.gz

4. Install the module. You can find the installation guide on the INSTALL.AP2 file. We have to specify top_dir in the make and make install commands because we install apache2/httpd using yum

# cd mod_fastcgi-2.4.6
# cp Makefile.AP2 Makefile
# make top_dir=/usr/lib/httpd
# make install top_dir=/usr/lib/httpd

5. Add "LoadModule fastcgi_module modules/mod_fastcgi.so" to /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf to tell apache to load the new module

6. Restart apache

# /etc/init.d/httpd restart

7. You can assure that the mod is loaded by apache2, by looking at /var/log/httpd/error_log

# grep -i "FastCGI" /var/log/httpd/error_log 

[Wed Aug 11 12:26:27 2010] [notice] FastCGI: process manager initialized (pid 8853)

That's all :)