This section details migrating an Apache HTTP Server 1.3 configuration file to be utilized by Apache HTTP Server 2.0.

If upgrading to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, note that the new stock configuration file for the Apache HTTP Server 2.0 package is installed as /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.rpmnew and the original version 1.3 httpd.conf is left untouched. It is entirely up to you whether to use the new configuration file and migrate the old settings to it, or use the existing file as a base and modify it to suit; however, some parts of the file have changed more than others and a mixed approach is generally the best. The stock configuration files for both version 1.3 and 2.0 are divided into three sections.

If the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file is a modified version of the newly installed default and a saved a copy of the original configuration file is available, it may be easiest to invoke the diff command, as in the following example (logged in as root):

diff -u httpd.conf.orig httpd.conf | less

This command highlights any modifications made. If a copy of the original file is not available, extract it from an RPM package using the rpm2cpio and cpio commands, as in the following example:

rpm2cpio apache-<version-number>.i386.rpm | cpio -i --make

In the above command, replace <version-number> with the version number for the apache package.

Finally, it is useful to know that the Apache HTTP Server has a testing mode to check for configuration errors. To use access it, type the following command:

apachectl configtest