There are a raft of "run a web site from here" commands that spawn an HTTP server from the command line. The problem is the web servers they spawn don't always represent the actual web server you might use in production, so they don't support, for example, .htaccess files.

Cue apache-anywhere, which starts a fully functional Apache server wherever you want, on whatever port you want, as many times as you want.

Got a directory full of html, javascript and css files with cgi scripts and htacces controls? Just fire up apache-anywhere.

It's like Apache, but Anywhere.

• Written and tested on a Mac (could be updated for any *nix)
• Apache 2.4
• A bash shell

• Clone this repository to your local machine:

  git clone https://github.com/marcolabreu/apache-anywhere.git
  

• Apache must already be installed

• Edit the bin/apache script (only if the apache binary is not at /usr/sbin/httpd)

• Edit config file config/httpd.conf if required (contains a minimum set of functionality)

With apache-anywhere/bin somwhere on the path:

apache                              // starts apache httpd in the current directory at port 8686

apache stop 8686                    // stop the apache instance running on port 8686

apache -p 8123                      // at current directory on port 8123

apache -d /tmp                      // sets root docs directory to /tmp

apache -d /home/user42 -p 8456      // set everything

If you're running apache as a regular user then the port number needs to be above 8000 as below that ports are reserved for system processes. Also ensure that whichever user you are logged in as has appropriate access to the files in the documents directory.

apache stop 8123                    // stops the apache http process running on port 8123

Apache log and tmp files are created at /tmp/{process_id}/

apache clean 8123                   // cleans up all temp files created by process on 8123

apache stats                        // provides stats about the permanent apache config in etc
                                    // useful to check what's already running on what port