Basic Settings

Use the Main tab to configure the basic server settings.

Figure 19-1: Basic settings

In the Server Name text area, enter a fully qualified domain name that you have the right to use. This option corresponds to the ServerName directive in httpd.conf. The ServerName directive sets the hostname of the Web server. It is used when creating redirection URLs. If you do not define a server name, the Web server attempts to resolve it from the IP address of the system. The server name does not have to be the domain name resolved from the IP address of the server. For example, you might want to set the server name to www.your_domain.com when your server’s real DNS name is actually foo.your_domain.com.

Enter the email address of the person who maintains the Web server in the Webmaster email address text area. This option corresponds to the ServerAdmin directive in httpd.conf. If you configure the server’s error pages to contain an email address, this email address will be used so that users can report problems by sending email to the server’s administrator. The default value is root@localhost.

Use the Available Addresses area to define the ports on which the server will accept incoming requests. This option corresponds to the Listen directive in httpd.conf. By default, Red Hat configures the Apache HTTP server to listen to port 80 for nonsecure Web communications. Click the Add button to define additional ports on which to accept requests. A window as shown in Figure 19-2 will appear. Either choose the Listen to all addresses option to listen to all IP addresses on the defined port or specify in the Address field a particular IP address over which the server will accept connections.

Specify only one IP address per port number. If you want to specify more than one IP address with the same port number, create an entry for each IP address. If at all possible, use an IP address instead of a domain name to prevent a DNS lookup failure. Refer to http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/dns-caveats.html for more information about issues regarding DNS and Apache.

Entering an asterisk (*) in the Address field is the same as choosing Listen to all addresses. Clicking the Edit button shows the same window as the Add button except with the fields populated for the selected entry. To delete an entry, select it and click the Delete button.

Figure 19-2: Available addresses

Tip

If you set the server to listen to a port under 1024, you must be root to start it. For port 1024 and above, httpd can be started as a regular user.