Chapter 14. Installing and Configuring Servers

As you've probably gathered, managing servers is one of the most valuableand most complexaspects of running a Unix machine. It's something Unix does very well because of its reliability.

In this chapter we'll show you how to install and configure the basic server applications. We'll set up your machine's Internet domain name , activate file sharing using both AppleShare and FTP, and explain secure login. From there, you'll configure your Mac to be an e-mail server, activate the Apache Web server, and add a simple CGI ( Common Gateway Interface ) script to the server.

After that, we'll show you how to install and configure the MySQL database engine. We even show you a simple Perl script that connects to and uses the database.

Some of these server applications are already installed in Mac OS X and can be activated with a mouse click. But of course we will show you how to do it all from the command line.

With this chapter in particular we are assuming that you have read the earlier chapters and are quite comfortable working at the command line and editing files.

You will need to be logged in as an administrative user for most of the tasks in this chapter, as almost all of them require that you perform tasks as root, using the sudo command.