Preface

搭建本地 server 是 GNU 进阶用户的必备技能，当你支持本地 HTML 文件使用 / 之后，很多事就方便许多了。比如 Gitbook 的搜索功能 ¹，克隆大牛的网站（参见我昨天发布的 rget 包）。

下面是我记的笔记，详细描述请参考 Digital Ocean 的 这篇文章。

Quick example

1. install software

   sudo apt -y install apache2
   

2. .conf file

   sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/test.conf 
   

   part of /etc/apache2/sites-available/test.conf

   <VirtualHost *:81>
       DocumentRoot /path/to/test
   
       <Directory /path/to/test>
           Require local granted
       </Directory>
   </VirtualHost>
   

   local means denying access from LAN, refer to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6264372/.之前用的是 Require all granted，有一天突然发现手机可以访问电脑上的本地网站，当时真是既兴奋又担心啊。后来才发现只有同在校园网才能访问，直接从公网是不行的，然而为了安全还是改成仅限本地电脑了。

3. listen port

   add Listen 81 in /etc/apache2/ports.conf

4. enable website

   sudo a2ensite test.conf
   sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
   sudo systemctl restart apache2
   

Now you can access your website at http://localhost:81.

Alias

You can mount arbitary directory into your apache server using Alias:

<VirtualHost *:1024>
    DocumentRoot /path1/to/mysite

    Alias "/examples"    "/path2/to/myproject/demos"
</VirtualHost>

Then localhost:1024/examples would retrieve the file /path2/to/myproject/demos/index.html.

Solve 403 permission issue

In /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all denied
</Directory>

<Directory /usr/share>
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

If you website directory (such as /path/to/test) isn’t contained in /var/www/ or /usr/share, the first block would take effect. That means Require all denied will cause an annoying 403 error.

The solution is to manually set:

<Directory /path/to/test>
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Afterword

Except for a2ensite, you can also use sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ to view and manage enabled *.conf files. 回想起来，好像是我无意间发掘了 vim 的编辑 文件夹 功能，当时还以为是 apache 的一个特殊文件。

2018-04-29: When applying to docker, it wasted me another a hour or two. I finally realized that from container’s view, localhost:1025 on my Chrome is actually remote. Thanks SO again, Listen 172.0.0.1:80 is really a ingenious idea. Inspired by it, I came up with -p 127.0.0.1:1025:80. The best thing is that I no longer have to toggle the daunting apache configuration.