Question

I am manually building httpd-2.2.17 from the source. Just to make sure I have the configuration options right, I checked the latest CENTOS apache srpm (which is for httpd-2.2.3). In the httpd.spec I find this line:

# forcibly prevent use of bundled apr, apr-util, pcre
rm -rf srclib/{apr,apr-util,pcre}

I was wondering why this is required ? What’s wrong with using the apr included within the default httpd source ?

Answer 1

Was wondering why this is required ?

To prevent the bundled apr/pcre libraries to be used and possibly installed. RedHat/CentOS would rather want to ship a standalone package of the apr and pcre libraries.

Whats wrong with using the apr included within apache ?

You might get out of sync regarding the apr/apr-util/pcre versions that apache bundleds vs the apr/apr-utl/pcre libraries that CentoS/RHEL packages. I.e. you want to ship one particular release of pcre from http://www.pcre.org/ (+ perhaps custom patches) that several packages can use , not just apache, and you want apache to build against that library instead of the one apache bundle.

Removing those directories, and it’s a safe bet building apache won’t pick up any of the bundled headers/libraries.