Options for Compiling the Apache Web Server From Source

When compiling Apache for your Linux server there are a multitude of different options available that increase the amount of control you have over the modules included with Apache or allow you to specify the path of ancillary programs. You can of course specify the install path of your Apache2 installation and its components, if no prefix is specified apache2 will be installed in /usr/local/apache2.

Usage: ./configure [OPTION]... [VAR=VALUE]...

For example, ./configure --help will show all of the available options below.

To assign environment variables (e.g., CC, CFLAGS...), specify them as VAR=VALUE. See below for descriptions of some of the useful variables.

Defaults for the options are specified in brackets.

Configuration:

-h, --help	display this help and exit
--help=short	display options specific to this package
--help=recursive	display the short help of all the included packages
-V, --version	display version information and exit
-q, --quiet, --silent	do not print `checking...' messages
--cache-file=FILE	cache test results in FILE [disabled]
-C, --config-cache	alias for `--cache-file=config.cache'
-n, --no-create	do not create output files
--srcdir=DIR	find the sources in DIR [configure dir or `..']

Installation directories:

Installation directories: --prefix=PREFIX	install architecture-independent files in PREFIX [/usr/local/apache2]
--exec-prefix=EPREFIX	install architecture-dependent files in EPREFIX [PREFIX]

Fine tuning of the installation directories:
--bindir=DIR	user executables [EPREFIX/bin]
--sbindir=DIR	system admin executables [EPREFIX/sbin]
--libexecdir=DIR	program executables [EPREFIX/libexec]
--sysconfdir=DIR	read-only single-machine data [PREFIX/etc]
--sharedstatedir=DIR	modifiable architecture-independent data [PREFIX/com]
--localstatedir=DIR	modifiable single-machine data [PREFIX/var]
--libdir=DIR	object code libraries [EPREFIX/lib]
--includedir=DIR	C header files [PREFIX/include]
--oldincludedir=DIR	C header files for non-gcc [/usr/include]
--datarootdir=DIR	read-only arch.-independent data root [PREFIX/share]
--datadir=DIR	read-only architecture-independent data [DATAROOTDIR]
--infodir=DIR	info documentation [DATAROOTDIR/info]
--localedir=DIR	locale-dependent data [DATAROOTDIR/locale]
--mandir=DIR	man documentation [DATAROOTDIR/man]
--docdir=DIR	documentation root [DATAROOTDIR/doc/PACKAGE]
--htmldir=DIR	html documentation [DOCDIR]
--dvidir=DIR	dvi documentation [DOCDIR]
--pdfdir=DIR	pdf documentation [DOCDIR]
--psdir=DIR	ps documentation [DOCDIR]

System types:
--build=BUILD	configure for building on BUILD [guessed]
--host=HOST	cross-compile to build programs to run on HOST [BUILD]
--target=TARGET	configure for building compilers for TARGET [HOST]

Optional Features:
--disable-option-checking	ignore unrecognized --enable/--with options
--disable-FEATURE	do not include FEATURE (same as --enable-FEATURE=no)
--enable-FEATURE[=ARG]	include FEATURE [ARG=yes]
--enable-layout=LAYOUT
--enable-v4-mapped	Allow IPv6 sockets to handle IPv4 connections
--enable-exception-hook	Enable fatal exception hook
--enable-maintainer-mode	Turn on debugging and compile time warnings
--enable-pie	Build httpd as a Position Independent Executable
--enable-modules=MODULE-LIST	Space-separated list of modules to enable | "all" | "most"
--enable-mods-shared=MODULE-LIST	Space-separated list of shared modules to enable | "all" | "most"
--disable-authn-file	file-based authentication control
--enable-authn-dbm	DBM-based authentication control
--enable-authn-anon	anonymous user authentication control
--enable-authn-dbd	SQL-based authentication control
--disable-authn-default	authentication backstopper
--enable-authn-alias	auth provider alias
--disable-authz-host	host-based authorization control
--disable-authz-groupfile	'require group' authorization control
--disable-authz-user	'require user' authorization control
--enable-authz-dbm	DBM-based authorization control
--enable-authz-owner	'require file-owner' authorization control
--enable-authnz-ldap	LDAP based authentication
--disable-authz-default	authorization control backstopper
--disable-auth-basic	basic authentication
--enable-auth-digest	RFC2617 Digest authentication
--enable-isapi	isapi extension support
--enable-file-cache	File cache
--enable-cache	dynamic file caching
--enable-disk-cache	disk caching module
--enable-mem-cache	memory caching module
--enable-dbd	Apache DBD Framework
--enable-bucketeer	buckets manipulation filter
--enable-dumpio	I/O dump filter
--enable-echo	ECHO server
--enable-example	example and demo module
--enable-case-filter	example uppercase conversion filter
--enable-case-filter-in	example uppercase conversion input filter
--enable-ext-filter	external filter module
--disable-include	Server Side Includes
--disable-filter	Smart Filtering
--enable-substitute	response content rewrite-like filtering
--disable-charset-lite	character set translation
--enable-charset-lite	character set translation
--enable-deflate	Deflate transfer encoding support
--enable-ldap	LDAP caching and connection pooling services
--disable-log-config	logging configuration
--enable-log-forensic	forensic logging
--enable-logio	input and output logging
--disable-env	clearing/setting of ENV vars
--enable-mime-magic	automagically determining MIME type
--enable-cern-meta	CERN-type meta files
--enable-expires	Expires header control
--enable-headers	HTTP header control
--enable-ident	RFC 1413 identity check
--enable-usertrack	user-session tracking
--enable-unique-id	per-request unique ids
--disable-setenvif	basing ENV vars on headers
--disable-version	determining httpd version in config files
--enable-proxy	Apache proxy module
--enable-proxy-connect	Apache proxy CONNECT module
--enable-proxy-ftp	Apache proxy FTP module
--enable-proxy-http	Apache proxy HTTP module
--enable-proxy-scgi	Apache proxy SCGI module
--enable-proxy-ajp	Apache proxy AJP module
--enable-proxy-balancer	Apache proxy BALANCER module
--enable-ssl	SSL/TLS support (mod_ssl)
--enable-distcache	Select distcache support in mod_ssl
--enable-optional-hook-export	example optional hook exporter
--enable-optional-hook-import	example optional hook importer
--enable-optional-fn-import	example optional function importer
--enable-optional-fn-export	example optional function exporter
--enable-static-support	Build a statically linked version of the support binaries
--enable-static-htpasswd	Build a statically linked version of htpasswd
--enable-static-htdigest	Build a statically linked version of htdigest
--enable-static-rotatelogs	Build a statically linked version of rotatelogs
--enable-static-logresolve	Build a statically linked version of logresolve
--enable-static-htdbm	Build a statically linked version of htdbm
--enable-static-ab	Build a statically linked version of ab
--enable-static-checkgid	Build a statically linked version of checkgid
--enable-static-htcacheclean	Build a statically linked version of htcacheclean
--enable-static-httxt2dbm	Build a statically linked version of httxt2dbm
--enable-http	HTTP protocol handling
--disable-mime	mapping of file-extension to MIME
--enable-dav	WebDAV protocol handling
--disable-status	process/thread monitoring
--disable-autoindex	directory listing
--disable-asis	as-is filetypes
--enable-info	server information
--enable-suexec	set uid and gid for spawned processes
--disable-cgid	CGI scripts
--enable-cgi	CGI scripts
--disable-cgi	CGI scripts
--enable-cgid	CGI scripts
--enable-dav-fs	DAV provider for the filesystem
--enable-dav-lock	DAV provider for generic locking
--enable-vhost-alias	mass virtual hosting module
--disable-negotiation	content negotiation
--disable-dir	directory request handling
--enable-imagemap	server-side imagemaps
--disable-actions	Action triggering on requests
--enable-speling	correct common URL misspellings
--disable-userdir	mapping of requests to user-specific directories
--disable-alias	mapping of requests to different filesystem parts
--enable-rewrite	rule based URL manipulation
--enable-so	DSO capability

Optional Packages:
--with-PACKAGE[=ARG]	use PACKAGE [ARG=yes]
--without-PACKAGE	do not use PACKAGE (same as --with-PACKAGE=no)
--with-included-apr	Use bundled copies of APR/APR-Util
--with-apr=PATH	prefix for installed APR or the full path to apr-config
--with-apr-util=PATH	prefix for installed APU or the full path to apu-config
--with-pcre=PATH	Use external PCRE library
--with-port=PORT	Port on which to listen (default is 80)
--with-sslport=SSLPORT	Port on which to securelisten (default is 443)
--with-z=DIR	use a specific zlib library
--with-sslc=DIR	RSA SSL-C SSL/TLS toolkit
--with-ssl=DIR	OpenSSL SSL/TLS toolkit
--with-mpm=MPM	Choose the process model for Apache to use. MPM={beos|event|worker|prefork|mpmt_os2}
--with-module=module-type:module-file	Enable module-file in the modules/<module-type> directory.
--with-program-name	alternate executable name
--with-suexec-bin	Path to suexec binary
--with-suexec-caller	User allowed to call SuExec
--with-suexec-userdir	User subdirectory
--with-suexec-docroot	SuExec root directory
--with-suexec-uidmin	Minimal allowed UID
--with-suexec-gidmin	Minimal allowed GID
--with-suexec-logfile	Set the logfile
--with-suexec-safepath	Set the safepath
--with-suexec-umask	umask for suexec'd process

Some influential environment variables:
CC	C compiler command
CFLAGS	C compiler flags
LDFLAGS	linker flags, e.g. -L<lib dir> if you have libraries in a nonstandard directory <lib dir>
LIBS	libraries to pass to the linker, e.g. -l<library>
CPPFLAGS	C/C++/Objective C preprocessor flags, e.g. -I<include dir> if you have headers in a nonstandard directory <include dir>
CPP	C preprocessor