How to Install Apache on CentOS 7 Server

Apache web server is one of the most popular web servers in the world. It is an open-source and cross-platform HTTP server that powers a large percentage of the Internet’s websites. Apache HTTP server providing powerful features which can be extended by a wide variety of modules. This guide will help you to install Apache web server on your CentOS 7 machine.

Install Apache on CentOS 7#

Apache is available in the default CentOS repositories and the installation is pretty straight forward.

Prerequisites#

Before starting with tutorial, You need CentOS 7 server with logged in as a sudo enabled user.

Installing Apache#

We will use CentOS’s package manager yum to install Apache. Using package manager we can install Apache easily from a repository maintained by CentOS.

On CentOS, Apache package is known as httpd. Execute below command to install Apache package :

sudo yum install httpd

Once it installs, you can start and enable Apache on your server:

sudo systemctl start httpd

Next, run below command to enable Apache auto start on boot:

sudo systemctl enable httpd

Adjust Firewall#

If your firewall enabled then you have to open http and https ports. Use below commands to open 80 and 443 ports :

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Testing Apache Installation#

Finally you installed Apache and adjusted firewall so you can check status and version of Apache service by type :

sudo systemctl status httpd

Output
● httpd.service - The Apache HTTP Server
    Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    Active: active (running) since Fri 2019-03-29 15:25:07 UTC; 11s ago
      Docs: man:httpd(8)
            man:apachectl(8)
  Main PID: 5793 (httpd)
    Status: "Total requests: 0; Current requests/sec: 0; Current traffic:   0 B/sec"
    CGroup: /system.slice/httpd.service
            ├─5793 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
            ├─5802 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
            ├─5803 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
            ├─5804 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
            ├─5805 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
            └─5806 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND

To check version of Apache service, type:

sudo httpd -v

It will show you output as following:

Output
Server version: Apache/2.4.6 (CentOS)
Server built:   Nov 5 2018 01:47:09

Afterwards, you can do final testing to know everything is working proper, open browser and browse with your server public ip address. It should show a CentOS apache default page as below:

http://YOUR_SERVER_IP

Managing Apache Service#

You can manage Apache services by following commands:

To stop Apache service you can run :

sudo systemctl stop httpd

To again start it type:

sudo systemctl start httpd

Restart (stop and start) Apache service by typing:

sudo systemctl restart httpd

You need to reload Apache if changes made in configuration. You can do it by:

sudo systemctl reload httpd

If you want to disable the Apache service to start at boot:

sudo systemctl disable httpd

You can re-enable by:

sudo systemctl enable httpd

Conclusion#

You have successfully installed Apache on your CentOS 7 system. You can now ready to start deploying your applications and use Apache as a web server.