Upgrading from 2.2.10 to 2.2.21: need some help getting started

[vegomatic]

Hello, everyone!

I know this is really basic information, but as it turns out, I've never had to upgrade Apache before. I've been told we need to upgrade our version 2.2.10 to at least 2.2.18 (SUSE 11. Our Apache was installed when the server was created.) I see that 2.2.21 is the latest version so I figured we'd go with that and maybe I wouldn't have to upgrade again for a while.
Is there an rpm for this? I can handle that! All I've found is a .tar.gz file which I uncompressed. Read the installation instructions and that's where I started getting confused--I've never had to compile or "make" anything before.
The Apache site says to start out by finding the config.nice file in the build directory. I've looked all over the server and can't find config.nice.
Is there someone out there who could give me a little push to get started? I'd really appreciate it!

TIA

veg

 

[RhythmAce]

Do you have yum installed? If so, all you need to do is type "yum update httpd" and yum will download the package and all its dependents and install them. Suse may use something similar if not yum. If all else fails, you should be able to find an rpm package for your distro at rpmfind.net

 

[vegomatic]

No, I don't have yum--that would be too easy! I do have yast, though, but it will only upgrade Apache to 2.2.12, which I guess is better than nothing, but not much...

 

[Noway2]

I am not as familiar with Suse as other distributions, but if yast will only update to 2.2.12, it is a sign that this is the latest version that has been ported to your distribution by the package maintainers. A prudent step would be to verify what the latest version is in the distro repositories, which should be easy enough with a simple search.

If you wish to go beyond this, you can compile from source. Be sure to uninstall the package maintained version first if you do. Then you will need to find either the compile switch or the combination of switches used for your version. You will also need to be careful of any dependencies, which is about the biggest risk you face with compiling from source and why there is often times a delay in the repositories. Often times the major distributions fine tune the placement of files and logging compared to the standard. For example, calling the application Apache2 versus httpd and placing binaries in /bin instead of /usr/bin.

Once you compile from source, you will then be responsible for maintaining it from there on out, unless you uninstall it and go back to the repository version.

In a nutshell, unless there is a compelling reason, i.e. a feature or security flaw that you NEED the latest version, going with the latest repository version is 9.9 times out of 10 a much easier, more practical, and safer move.