Install multiple Apache Instances on a single Windows 2003 machine

Question

On my server I have installed a web application that comes with a bundle of Apache Services. Hence all the apache related dlls are located in the application folder's sub directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\MyWebApp\apache2). It seems that when the windows 2003 server is started all the request will be served by that apache services.

Now I want to install another instances of Apache and MYSQL, PhP to the default Program Folders ( e.g., C:\Program Files\Apache Service Foundation etc), however upon installation I can't configure it-- there is no way to get the second Apache Service up and running.

When I am installing the second Apache, I set the network domain name to "pm2", and choose the Port 8080 option. However, when apache is finished in installation, when I type in http://pm2:8080, I got a page cannot be displayed error.

Is there anything I miss?

Answer 1

Does the original site still work ok? If it does, there is a chance that the second installation of apache is trying to install itself as a service with the same name as the first instance and therefore, failing.

To install apache as a second service use:

httpd -k install -n "Apache Instance 2" -f "C:\Program Files\Apache Service Foundation\path\to\your\conf file.conf"

Answer 2

A couple of thoughts:

• Have you added an entry to either your DNS server or hosts file to ensure that PM2 is going to the correct server?
• Try starting the second Apache instance from the command line, this way you will get error messages displayed on the console so that you can see if there are any errors preventing it from starting properly.

Answer 3

I know this is an old question, but in general you won't need to start a second process of Apache, much less install a second copy of the program. Look through the Apache manuals, specifically at Listen and VirtualHost for details.

If there are version conflicts for some requirements on the server side then this may not apply to your case, it wasn't clear from your post.