Apache isn't just the planet's most popular Web server - it'salso one heck of a proxy server. This article explores the process ofinstalling and configuring Apache to act as a proxy server for yournetwork, demonstrating how it can be used to cache frequently-accessedWeb sites, log Internet access and block offensive domains, in additionto serving up Web content. Talk about getting two servers for the priceof one!
Obviously, in order to do anything constructive with Apache, you need a copy of the source code. Drop by http://httpd.apache.org/ and get yourself the latest version (this article uses both Apache 1.3 and Apache 2.0).
Once you've got a source code archive, uncompress it into a directory on your system,
$ cd /tmp
$ tar -xzvf httpd-2.0.36.tar.gz
and run the "configure" script in the newly-created directory
(for Apache 1.3):
$ ./configure --enable-module=proxy
If you're using Apache 2.0, you should use this instead:
Once the source tree has been prepped, you can compile and
install Apache with a quick
$ make
$ make install
Apache should get installed to the default location of
/usr/local/apache, unless you specified a different location by adding the "--prefix" parameter to the "configure" script.
If all goes well, you should now have a properly-compiled Apache Web server installed on your system. Check to make sure that the proxy module has been included in the build via a quick scan of the output of "httpd -l".