I use Centos 6.5, I've installed apache 2.2 on my server by yum, I want to upgrade my apache to 2.4, but yum not support that, so I download apache 2.4.7 and install it to opt/apache/httpd-2.4.7 follow the tutorial here: Apache 2.4.x Manual install on RHEL 6.4 - No apache modules will load on start . I want to change environment variables to new apache version to write apache 2.4 modules (change include folder for header file, change "modules" folder when build with apxs,...). I think I must install another httpd-devel for apache 2.4.7, because I still not install httpd-devel-2.4.7, but I don't know how to install and use it instead of httpd-devel-2.2 by yum. I can not describe my problems clearly in English, so I hope you can understand it. I'm a newbie and I really need your help. Thank you!
2 Answers
CentOS is image of RHEL, which stands for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. RHEL is designed to be an "Enterprise class" operating system, in which you rely on software packages that are delivered from controlled repositories where they are made available only after being thoroughly tested for Enterprise level use.
From that point of view, its generally not a good idea to install packages from source code, or using third party RPMs, because once you do, your OS is no longer "Enterprise" class.
If you're trying to upgrade for security reasons, you shouldn't. Critical security updates are always backported in previous RPM releases, so you only have to update your current package from the same yum repo from where you got it first. The binary will still say it is Apache 2.2, but it will have the latest security updates.
If you need an actual feature of 2.4, the smart move is to upgrade your CentOS. It may seem like the harder option initially, but it never is in the long run.
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In my experience these reports can be fairly basic/binary:
Are you running the latest version of the software? If no flag as security risk.
However this fails to take into account package managers which back port fixes to older versions and so often have addressed potential security issues.
By moving away from the packaged version you are making security updates more difficult (as can't do a simple "yum update" to address them anymore).
Apache 2.2 is still maintained for security and bug fixes - though how long for remains to be seen and it is falling further and further behind in features.
So often you just need to explain (and prove!) you have a regular patching process and so the "version of Apache" you are reporting is not really accurate in terms of security patching.
See here for more details: https://serverfault.com/questions/731657/pci-compliance-apache-versions/
Saying all that we moved to Apache 2.4 on centos a while back for some extra features we wanted and just upgrade it to the latest version as part of regular patching cycle and are not finding it too inconvenient. Yes it's not quite as simple as "yum update" but it's a decision we've made because of some features we required. Not a decision to be taken lightly as Garreth states but it had the added side effect of this not getting highlighted anymore in these sorts of security scans :-)
We made this decision despite upgrading to a newer version of Red Hat as that was still on an older version of Apache (2.4.7 if memory serves me correctly) which still missed a few features we required. Sometimes it's frustrating how far behind some of these "enterprise" versions are, but that's the downside when there are plenty of upsides to using them too (stability, security... etc.).
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