To install mod_perl, you need to have the following software packages installed on your system:

1. Version 5.004 or later of the Perl interpreter.
2. ANSI-compatible C compiler (gcc is the safest bet).
3. A standard version of make (GNU's make and the make shipped with Solaris both work).

The following packages are optional, but they can make your life significantly easier as far as CGI programming goes:

1. CGI.pm - native Perl routines to do CGI grunt work for you
2. LWP.pm - Perl routines to perform HTTP tasks, such as parsing robots.txt files

If you don't have LWP installed the "test" section of the mod_perl compiling process will fail, but odds are good that you're still OK.  If you don't have LWP installed, don't freak out if a ton of "Test Failed!!" messages dance across your screen sometime during the compilation of mod_perl.
 

Downloading Apache

If you already have Apache installed on your server, you don't have to re-compile and re-install it to make use of mod_perl.  You can ignore the sections on compiling and installing Apache - we'll just use your current installation.

If you don't have Apache installed, I recommend installing it from source (rather than a binary package, like an RPM).  The latest version of Apache that I've verified mod_perl to work with is Apache 1.3.12, which is the current version as of June 2000.

Apache 1.3.12 can be downloaded from the main Apache site from this location.
 

Downloading mod_perl

As of the writing of this document, the current version of mod_perl is 1.24.  Version 1.24 of mod_perl can be downloaded from your nearest CPAN mirror site, or from the main site at this location.

Unpacking The Distributions

Once you've downloaded the mod_perl distribution (and Apache, if you don't already have it installed) you need to unpack the archive files by typing the following commands:
 

These commands will create two directories, one containing the sources for mod_perl, the other containing the sources for Apache.