VMware vFabric Web Server - 5.2 Installation Manual
vFabric Web Server Installation and
Configuration
VMware vFabric Web Server 5.2
VMware vFabric Suite 5.2
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Table of Contents
1. About vFabric Web Server Installation and Configuration .............................................................................. 1
Intended Audience ......................................................................................................................... 1
2. Overview of vFabric Web Server ............................................................................................................ 3
Information for International Customers ............................................................................................... 3
Complete Packages and Modules in vFabric Web Server 5.2 ...................................................................... 3
Differences Between vFabric Web Server and vFabric ERS ....................................................................... 4
3. Installing vFabric Web Server ................................................................................................................ 7
Installation Note for vFabric Suite Customers ........................................................................................ 7
Available Distribution Packages ......................................................................................................... 7
RHEL: Install vFabric Web Server from an RPM ................................................................................... 7
Unix: Install vFabric Web Server from a Self-Extracting ZIP ...................................................................... 9
Windows: Install vFabric Web Server from a ZIP File ............................................................................ 11
Activate a vFabric Web Server Local License ...................................................................................... 12
Description of the vFabric Web Server Installation ................................................................................ 13
4. Upgrading vFabric Web Server ............................................................................................................. 15
RHEL: Upgrade Using the VMware RPM Repository ............................................................................. 15
Unix: Upgrade Using a Self-Extracting ZIP ......................................................................................... 15
Windows: Upgrade Using a Self-Extracting ZIP .................................................................................... 16
5. Creating and Using vFabric Web Server Instances ...................................................................................... 19
Description of vFabric Web Server Instances ....................................................................................... 19
Create vFabric Web Server Instances ................................................................................................. 19
newserver Prompts and Command Reference ....................................................................................... 20
Unix: Start and Stop vFabric Web Server Instances ................................................................................ 24
Windows: Start and Stop vFabric Web Server Instances .......................................................................... 25
httpdctl Reference ........................................................................................................................ 26
Serve a Sample HTML File from Your vFabric Web Server Instance ........................................................... 27
6. Configuring vFabric Web Server Instances ............................................................................................... 29
Using Sample Configuration Files to Enable Features and Modify Configuration ............................................. 29
Configure Load Balancing Between Two or More tc Runtime Instances ........................................................ 29
Configure SSL Between vFabric Web Server and vFabric tc Server ............................................................. 33
Configure BMX for Monitoring vFabric Web Server Instances .................................................................. 37
7. Security Information .......................................................................................................................... 39
External Interfaces, Ports, and Services .............................................................................................. 39
Resources That Must Be Protected .................................................................................................... 39
Log File Locations ....................................................................................................................... 39
User Accounts Created at Installation ................................................................................................ 40
Obtaining and Installing Security Updates ........................................................................................... 40
8. Managing Planned and Unplanned Outages .............................................................................................. 41
Managing Planned Outages ............................................................................................................. 41
Managing Unplanned Outages ......................................................................................................... 41
Backing Up vFabric Web Server ...................................................................................................... 42
9. Additional Documentation ................................................................................................................... 45
VMware vFabric Suite 5.2 iii
iv vFabric Web Server
About vFabric Web Server Installation
and Configuration
1. About vFabric Web Server Installation and Configuration
Revised October 16, 2012.
VMware vFabric Web Server Installation and Configuration describes product concepts and product-specific configuration
tasks for VMware® vFabric™ Web Server. Fully compatible with Apache Web Server, vFabric Web Server is a dynamic loadbalancing service that is available as a standalone product and as a part of VMware® vFabric Suite™ Standard and vFabric
Suite Advanced editions. Read this documentation for an overview of vFabric Web Server features, installation instructions, and
information on how to configure functionality that is specific to vFabric Web Server.
Intended Audience
vFabric Web Server Installation and Configuration is intended for experienced Windows and Unix developers and system
administrators who want to install a Web Server to serve static Web content, act as a proxy, or load balance between application
servers such as VMware® vFabric™ tc Server.
1
VMware vFabric Suite 5.2 1
2 vFabric Web Server
About vFabric Web Server Installation
2
and Configuration
Overview of vFabric Web Server 3
2. Overview of vFabric Web Server
vFabric Web Server is the Web server and load-balancing component of VMware vFabric Suite. vFabric Web Server 5.2 is based
on Apache HTTP Server version 2.2.
In addition to the standard features of Apache HTTP Server, vFabric Web Server provides the following mission-critical benefits:
• Ability to easily install multiple instances of vFabric Web Server running on a single computer.
• Scalable management of multiple Web sites and servers; you can run and manage hundreds of instances of vFabric Web
Server.
• Support for heterogeneous environments (32- and 64-bit architectures): Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Solaris,
Ubuntu, and Microsoft Windows. vFabric Web Server can be updated and patched across all servers at once. See Supported
Configurations and System Requirements for details.
Subtopics
Information for International Users
Complete Packages and Modules in vFabric Web Server 5.2
Differences Between vFabric Web Server and vFabric ERS
Information for International Customers
If you require multi-byte character-set support, VMware recommends that you follow these guidelines for using multi-byte
filenames and multi-byte characters in configuration files. These guidelines provide the most flexibility and most consistent
results:
• Use the UTF-8 encoding when running a Unix terminal or Windows PowerShell. For example, to set this encoding on Unix,
you can use the following environment variable:
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
On Windows, you can run the following command in your PowerShell window:
PS prompt> chcp 65001
Important: The preceding Windows command does not always work as expected on pre-R2 versions of Windows 2008. For
this reason, VMware strongly recommends that you install vFabric Web Server on Windows 2008 R2.
Setting your encoding to UTF-8 results in better display of httpctl output, easier examination of the log files, and so on.
• Edit and save all vFabric Web Server configuration files, such as conf/httpd.conf, in UTF-8 format. This improves the
legibility of the Web Server access and error log files.
Complete Packages and Modules in vFabric Web Server 5.2
This section lists the complete contents of vFabric Web Server 5.2.
This document describes features and functionality for vFabric Web Sever 5.2. For general information about new
features in Apache HTTP Server 2.2, see the Apache Web site.
• Core Apache HTTP 2.2.23 Binaries
• Apache mod_ftp 0.9.6
VMware vFabric Suite 5.2 3
4 vFabric Web Server
• Apache mod_fcgid 2.3.7
• OpenSSL 1.0.1c
• OpenSSL/FIPS 2.0
• OpenLDAP 2.3.43
• mod_jk 1.2.37
• mod_bmx 0.9.4 (Hyperic plug-in for monitoring support)
• libexpat 2.1.0
• libpcre 8.30
• libapr 1.4.5
• libaprutil 1.3.12
• libiconv 1.11
• zlib 1.2.3
You typically install vFabric Web Server from the vfabric-web-server-version-platform package, which
contains all the preceding compiled modules. For your convenience, VMware also makes a vfabric-web-server-
devel-version-platform package available which you can use to build HTTPD modules. Typically, you install the devel package only on development computers, and not on production computers.
mod_fcgid Implementation of Connector to FastCGI
The mod_fcgid distributed with vFabric Web Server 5.2 is an implementation of the connector to FastCGI applications. This
module allows the user to provision FastCGI providers such as PHP or Ruby on Rails from third parties, running out-of-process
from the server itself.
Many applications can be built to support FastCGI; consult your language or application documentation for details. The
application providing FastCGI services is launched by mod_fcgid on the initial request, and reused for subsequent requests to that
application or language environment.
For details on configuring an application, including the number of persistent processes created, see Apache Module mod_fcgid.
Differences Between vFabric Web Server and vFabric ERS
The vFabric Cloud Application Platform includes two HTTP server and load-balancing products: vFabric Web Server and
vFabric Enterprise Ready Server (ERS). vFabric ERS is nearing its end-of-life and VMware highly recommends that ERS
customers migrate to vFabric Web Server. The following table describes the major differences between the two products and
provides high-level actions that existing ERS customers can take as they prepare for the migration.
Table 2.1. Differences Between vFabric Web Server and vFabric ERS
vFabric Web Server vFabric ERS Customer Action
Available as part of vFabric Suite (Standard
and Advanced) or as a standalone product.
Strictly an Apache HTTPD Server-based
product. vFabric tc Server, a separate
product, is strictly an Apache Tomcat-based
product.
Runs on current, vendor-supported 32and 64-bit releases of RHEL, Microsoft
Not included in vFabric Suite. Originally
designed for only physical computers.
Includes both Apache HTTPD and Apache
Tomcat packages.
Runs on now-unsupported, or "twilighted",
versions of RHEL, Windows, Solaris, AIX, and
Select licensing based on vFabric integration
or dedicated hardware.
Migrate ERS Apache HTTPD instances to
vFabric Web Server. Separately migrate ERS
Tomcat instances to vFabric tc Server.
Upgrade to a vendor-supported operating
system version for all vFabric Web Server
4 Overview of vFabric Web Server
Overview of vFabric Web Server 5
vFabric Web Server vFabric ERS Customer Action
Windows, Solaris, and AIX. See Supported
Configurations and System Requirements for
the exact versions.
HPUX. See ERS Supported Platforms for the
exact versions.
instances, and apply all patch releases (such
as service packs) issued by that vendor
no later than 12 months from their vendor
release.
Includes the current enterprise-ready release
of Apache HTTPD Server 2.2.
During installation or upgrade, the Apache
HTTPD binaries are written to a path
in the format vfabric-web-server/
httpd-2.2.xx.x-32. This preserves any
existing Apache HTTPD binaries without
overwriting them.
Includes the most commonly-used modules.
See Complete Packages and Modules in
vFabric Web Server 5.2.
Closely tracks Apache Software Foundation
(ASF) naming and directory layout
conventions. In particular:
• install-dir/httpd-2.2/modules/
directory contains the loadable modules
• Binaries and configuration file names use
httpd prefix
• install-dir/newserver creates new
instances
• instance-dir/bin/httpdctl controls
each deployed instance
• instance-dir/conf/extras/ offers
feature-based small config templates
Includes the current release of Apache
HTTPD Server 2.2, as well as the nowdeprecated 2.0 and 1.3 versions.
During installation or upgrade, the Apache
HTTPD binaries are always written to the
same directory (ers-install-path/
apache2.2-64), which means on upgrade
any existing binaries are overwritten.
Included additional modules, such as
mod_perl, mod_php, and mod_snmp.
Has a number of now-stale, legacy file and
path conventions. In particular:
• install-dir/apache2.2/modules/
standard directory contains the loadable
modules
• Binaries and configuration file names use
httpsd prefix
• install-dir/ers-server.pl creates
new instances
• install-dir/servers/instance-
dir/bin/apache_startup.sh|bat
controls each deployed instance
• install-dir/servers/instance-
dir/conf/httpsd.conf is one large,
monolithic configuration template.
Migrate all Apache HTTPD 2.0 and 1.3
instances to vFabric Web Server 2.2
instances. The migration requires updates to
the *.conf file.
Point all server instances to the common
symlink vfabric-web-server/
httpd-2.2, modify it to revert/roll back/
change 32-64 bit modes.
Migrate PHP and Perl applications to the
supported, and more optimal, mod_fcgid
environment.
Create a new vFabric Web Server instance,
then migrate customizations from your
existing vFabric ERS instance. Alternatively,
modify a copy of the deployed vFabric
ERS instance tree to use vFabric Web
Server path and file name conventions.
Use smaller functional .conf snippets to
make the configuration more organized and
maintainable.
VMware vFabric Suite 5.2 5
6 vFabric Web Server
6 Overview of vFabric Web Server
Installing vFabric Web Server 7
3. Installing vFabric Web Server
vFabric Web Server has several options for installation and setup. Installation options vary according to whether you install
Web Server standalone or as part of vFabric Suite installation and whether your operating system is Unix, Windows, or another
supported platform.
Subtopics
Installation Note for vFabric Suite Customers
Available Distribution Packages
RHEL: Install vFabric Web Server from an RPM
Unix: Install vFabric Web Server from a Self-Extracting ZIP
Windows: Install vFabric Web Server from a Self-Extracting ZIP File
Activate a vFabric Web Server Local License
Description of the vFabric Web Server Installation
Installation Note for vFabric Suite Customers
If you will be installing vFabric Web Server as part of a vFabric Suite Standard package, complete the procedures for installing
vFabric License Server and activating vFabric Suite licenses in Getting Started with vFabric Suite. You may also want to read the
other vFabric licensing sections in that guide, to understand how licensing works with vFabric Suite.
Available Distribution Packages
vFabric Web Server is split into the following two distribution packages to simplify the installation and deployment to your
datacenter:
• vfabric-web-server: Base package entirely sufficient for all production environments.
• vfabric-web-server-devel: Supplemental package that developers can use to compile and link http modules with the
same headers and libraries as httpd itself using the httpd-2.2/bin/apxs tool. This package requires that you also install
the base package.
RHEL: Install vFabric Web Server from an RPM
VMware recommends that you install vFabric Web Server on a Red Hat Linux Enterprise (RHEL) computer by first installing
the VMware RPM repository and then using yum to perform the actual installation. See Install vFabric Web Server from the
VMware RPM Repository.
You can also download the RPM from the VMware Download page and install it on your RHEL computer using the rpm
command, as described in Install vFabric Web Server from a Downloaded RPM. This installation option is necessary if you are
installing a version of Web Server that is not yet certified for vFabric Suite, which means that it has not yet been added to the
VMware RPM repository.
Install vFabric Web Server from the VMware RPM Repository
VMware recommends that you install Web Server on RHEL computers using the VMware RPM repository.
Prerequisites
• Verify that your system meets the supported configurations and installation requirements. See Supported Configurations and
System Requirements.
VMware vFabric Suite 5.2 7
8 vFabric Web Server
• Install the vFabric repository RPM, which makes it easier for you to browse the vFabric RPMs, including the vFabric Web
Server RPM. The vFabric repository contains all RPMs that are certified with this release of vFabric Suite. You install the
vFabric repository RPM on each RHEL computer on which you want to install one or more vFabric components, such as
vFabric Web Server.
1. On the RHEL computer, start a terminal as the root user.
2. Install the vFabric repository RPM using the following wget command, passing it the appropriate URL. The URL differs
depending on the version of RHEL you are using.
Important: You must run the entire wget command on a single line. Be sure you include the | sh at the end, or the
RPM installation will not work.
For RHEL 5:
prompt# wget -q -O - http://repo.vmware.com/pub/rhel5/vfabric/5.2/vfabric-5.2-suite-installer | sh
For RHEL 6:
prompt# wget -q -O - http://repo.vmware.com/pub/rhel6/vfabric/5.2/vfabric-5.2-suite-installer | sh
The command performs the following tasks:
• Imports the vFabric GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) key.
• Installs the vFabric 5.2 repository RPM.
• Launches the VMware End User License Agreement (EULA) acceptance and repository configuration script.
• Outputs the EULA for you to read; you must answer yes to accept the terms and continue.
3. Use the yum search vfabric or yum search vmware command to view the list of vFabric components that you
can install from the VMware repository. For example (output truncated for clarity):
prompt# yum search vfabric
...
======================================== Matched: vfabric ========================================
vfabric-rabbitmq-java-client-bin.noarch : The RabbitMQ Java Client Library
vfabric-rabbitmq-server.x86_64 : The RabbitMQ server
vfabric-tc-server-standard.noarch : VMware vFabric tc Server Standard
vfabric-web-server.x86_64 : VMware vFabric Web Server
...
The vFabric Web Server RPM is called vfabric-web-server.
Procedure
1. From the RHEL computer on which you will install vFabric Web Server, log in as the root user and start a terminal.
2. Execute the following yum command:
prompt# yum install vfabric-web-server
The yum command begins the install process, resolves dependencies, and displays the packages it will install.
The yum command automatically chooses the appropriate RPM package based on your architecture (32- or 64-bit).
To install the developer's package:
prompt# yum install vfabric-web-server-devel
8 Installing vFabric Web Server
Installing vFabric Web Server 9
3. Enter y at the prompt to begin the actual installation.
If the installation is successful, you see a Complete! message at the end.
What the yum install command does
The yum install command:
• Installs vFabric Web Server into the /opt/vmware/vfabric-web-server directory.
• Sets the owner of installation directory, along with all child directories and files, to root:root.
What to do next
• If you installed Web Server standalone, activate a local Web Server license as described in Activate a vFabric Web Server
Local License.
If you installed vFabric Web Server as part of vFabric Suite, you should have already activated licensing as described in the
procedures for installing vFabric License Server and activating vFabric Suite licenses in Getting Started with vFabric Suite.
(You may also want to read the other vFabric licensing sections in that guide, to understand how licensing works with vFabric
Suite.)
• Read Description of the vFabric Web Server Installation for a brief tour of what was installed.
• Create and start using a vFabric Web Server as described in Creating and Using vFabric Web Server Instances.
Install vFabric Web Server From a Downloaded RPM
You can install vFabric Web Server on RHEL by downloading the RPM from the VMware download center and executing the
rpm command. This procedure is necessary if you want to install a version of Web Server that has not yet been certified for
vFabric Suite.
Prerequisites
• Verify that your system meets the supported configurations and installation requirements. See Supported Configurations and
System Requirements.
Procedure
1. Log in to the RHEL computer on which you will install vFabric Web Server as the root user.
2. Browse to the VMware Download page and download the Web Server RPM file to a directory on your computer. The RPM
file is called vfabric-web-server-version.architecture.rpm.
3. Start a terminal and change to the directory in which you downloaded the RPM.
4. Execute the following rpm command to install Web Server:
prompt# rpm -ivhf vfabric-web-server-version.architecture.rpm
5. In the previous section, see What the yum install command does for post-installation information, such as the installation
directory. (The yum install command corresponds to the rpm command in this procedure.)
See What to do next for the suggested next steps.
Unix: Install vFabric Web Server from a Self-Extracting ZIP
You can install vFabric Web Server on Unix computers with a self-extracting ZIP file that you download from the VMware Web
site. Self-extracting zip files expand themselves, or you can use unzip if your platform supports it. Using unzip explicitly
enables you to specify options in addition to what is executed by default when the ZIP self-extracts.
VMware vFabric Suite 5.2 9
10 vFabric Web Server
Prerequisites
• Verify that your system meets the supported configurations and installation requirements. See Supported Configurations and
System Requirements.
• If you want to use unzip so you can specify additional options, but your platform does not support unzip, obtain an unzip
command.
• If your operating system is configured to support only 64-bit operation, an external unzip utility is required. Do not use the
jar utility to unpack these zip files, because the file system permissions will not be unpacked correctly.
• Be sure you have installed Perl on your computer, and that it is at least version 5.8. VMware recommends that you run the
Perl script (described in the procedure) in multibyte character encoding such as UTF-8, especially if you are an international
customer.
Procedure
1. Log in as the root user on to the Unix computer on which you want to install vFabric Web Server.
2. Create the directory in which you will install vFabric Web Server. For example:
prompt# mkdir /opt/vmware
3. Download the appropriate vFabric Web Server self-extracting ZIP from the VMware Download Web site and place it in the
directory you created.
Be sure to choose the correct Unix operating system and chip architecture. For example, the file to install vFabric Web
Server on a 64-bit Linux platform is vfabric-web-server-version-x86_64-linux-glibc2.zip.sfx.
4. From your terminal window, change to the directory in which you downloaded the ZIP file:
prompt# cd /opt/vmware
5. If necessary, change the permissions of the downloaded ZIP file to make it executable:
prompt# chmod 755 vfabric-web-server-version-x86_64-linux-glibc2.zip.sfx
6. Self-extract the files from the downloaded ZIP by using the file name as a command. For example:
prompt# ./vfabric-web-server-version-x86_64-linux-glibc2.zip.sfx
When it completes, the vFabric Web Server files are located in the vfabric-web-server subdirectory.
7. Change to the vfabric-web-server directory and run the fixrootpath.pl Perl script to correct the root paths. For
example:
prompt# cd vfabric-web-server
prompt# perl fixrootpath.pl
What to do next
• If you installed Web Server standalone, activate a local Web Server license as described in Activate a vFabric Web Server
Local License.
If you installed vFabric Web Server as part of vFabric Suite, you should have already activated licensing as described in the
procedures for installing vFabric License Server and activating vFabric Suite licenses in Getting Started with vFabric Suite.
(You may also want to read the other vFabric licensing sections in that guide, to understand how licensing works with vFabric
Suite.)
10 Installing vFabric Web Server
Installing vFabric Web Server 11
• Read Description of the vFabric Web Server Installation for a brief tour of what was installed.
• Create and start using a vFabric Web Server as described in Creating and Using vFabric Web Server Instances.
Windows: Install vFabric Web Server from a ZIP File
You install vFabric Web Server on Windows computers using a self-extracting ZIP file (*.zip.exe) that you download from
the VMware Web site.
Prerequisites
• Verify that your system meets the supported configurations and installation requirements. See Supported Configurations and
System Requirements.
• As of version 5.2 of vFabric Web Server, you must use Windows PowerShell 2.0 to execute the vFabric Web Server scripts
on Windows computers. Most recent Windows versions, such as Windows 7, have PowerShell installed by default, but some
older versions of Windows do not. To check whether your version of Windows has PowerShell installed, go to Start > All
Programs > Accessories and check for Windows PowerShell in the list.
If Windows PowerShell 2.0 is not installed on your Windows computer, download and install it from the Windows
Management Framework (Windows PowerShell 2.0, WinRM 2.0, and BITS 4.0) Web page on the Microsoft Support.
• If necessary, enable Windows PowerShell for script processing; by default, script processing is disabled.
1. Start PowerShell from the Start Menu as an Administrator by opening Start > All Programs > Accessories > Windows
PowerShell, then right-clicking on Windows PowerShell and selecting Run as Administrator. A PowerShell window
starts.
2. Check the current PowerShell setting by executing the following command:
PS prompt> Get-ExecutionPolicy
If the command returns Restricted, it means that PowerShell is not yet enabled. Enable it to allow local script
processing at a minimum by executing the following command:
PS prompt> Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
You can choose a different execution policy for your organization if you want, as well as enable PowerShell using
Group and User policies. Typically, only the Administrator will be using the vFabric Web Server scripts, so the
RemoteSigned execution policy should be adequate in most cases.
Procedure
1. From the Windows computer on which you want to install vFabric Web Server, log in as the Administrator user.
2. Start PowerShell from the Start Menu as an Administrator by opening Start > All Programs > Accessories > Windows
PowerShell, then right-clicking on Windows PowerShell and selecting Run as Administrator. A PowerShell window starts.
3. Create the directory into which you will install vFabric Web Server. Do not create a directory name that contains spaces. For
example:
PS prompt> mkdir c:\opt\vmware
4. Download the appropriate vFabric Web Server self-extracting ZIP from the VMware Download Web site and place it in the
directory you created.
Be sure to choose the correct architecture (32- or 64-bit). For example, the file to install vFabric Web Server on a 64-bit
Windows platform is vfabric-web-server-version-x64-windows.zip.exe.
VMware vFabric Suite 5.2 11
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