Installing Joomla on NetWare 6.5

Install apache2, php, mysql.

Download the zlib module for php. I used the 1.1.4 version with NetWare 6.5 Sp5
http://www.gknw.net/development/apache/libs/netware/
Extract the downloaded zlib package and place the modules from the zip into the sys:\php5\ext directory.

Enable php support in apache by uncommenting the include statement for mod_php in sys:\apache2\conf\httpd.conf
If the include statement doesn't exist, than you can create it by adding the following line to the bottom.
Include sys:\apache2\conf\mod_php.conf

If the include statement was remarked, be sure to stop and restart apache after removing the remark statement.

Test that apache has php support enabled by moving sys:\php5\scripts\info.php to sys:\apache2\htdocs then browse to http:\\server\info.php

You should have a nice looking page reporting the PHP version and compiled settings. Note! If you search the page for ZLIB, you should not find any hits. We will be fixing that.

Modify open_basedir = ".;sys:/apache2/htdocs" in sys:\php5\php.ini to reference the base directory of were joomla will be installed. Otherwise the include statements within joomla will not work. There are additional settings that may need to be tweaked in PHP.ini, like safe mode and such. Contact me if you need help with these. Add the extensions statement to php.ini to load zlib support. The line would look like this. extension=php_zlib.nlm (Note! This module exists in sys:\php5\ext

Restart apache2

Download and unzip the stable distribution from joomla.org
I unzipped the install into sys:\tmp and then made a copy to sys:\apache2\htdocs\joomla
Be sure that whatever directory you put joomla into, that your php.ini file matches this directory path. the include_path and open_basedir are set to met these needs.

I will leave the rest of the joomla configuration steps up to the joomla docs unless someone emails me and asks for more info.

Additional NetWare modules can be found here for apache, php, and such.
http://www.gknw.at/development/apache/

NetWare 6.5 Web Services

Today, I had the privilidge if working on a NetWare 6.5 box needed mysql, php, and several other vertual web hosts. I thought I would share some of my thoughts and techniques I used as it seems a lot of people struggle with these services.

Two main structures of apache are as follows
sys:\adminsrv
sys:\apache2

Load scripts for these two main apache instances are located in sys:\system
admsrvup and ap2webup. admsrvup loads the admin server instanced with ap2webup loading the default apache2 service instance.

The Administration Instance of Apache2 on Netware
The main configuration file is located in
sys:\adminsrv\conf\adminsrv.conf
This file controls ports 2200 and 2211
Not too much is done with this configuration. It generally runs out of the box and reinstalling the apache admin instance usually fixes it. Try to refrain from deleting the directory when reinstalling as there are some critical links contianed in the classes which are hard to restore.

The Apache 2 instance
This is the main apache2 service which can be used to run netstorage, ifolder, and other custom web pages as desired.
The main config file is located in sys:\apache2\conf\httpd.conf
Several load statements, listen statements and include statements are all located in this file.

Example real world situation
Customer wanted a regular web page listing on intranet.domain.com(ip x.x.x.10) and a iFolder webpage listening on ifolder.domain.com(ip x.x.x.11)

To accomplish this I created two start config files sys:\system\ap2webup.ncf and sys:\system\startifolder.ncf
ap2webup.ncf calls sys:\apach2\conf\httpd.conf and startifolder.ncf calls sys:\apach2\ifolder\server\ifolder_httpd.conf

The apache instance(ap2webup.ncf) loads into a protected address space because otherwise we would have a conflict between the copy of apache running for iFolder. Also the iFolder instance has to run in the OS address space as xsrv and ncpl need to be able to talk and those two modules have to run in the OS address space.

I made modifications to the apache2 (ap2webup) instance removing the load statements for netstorage, xsrv, and xtier. As these were not required for a normal web server operation. Also, removing these statements allowed the apache2 instance to run in protected memory.

I might post more details on this later.