This document assumes that you have basic knowledge of:

  • *NIX;
  • Apache administration;
  • Program compilation and installation.

OK, here's what you have to do:

1. Get the files you need. I assume you save all these files in /root:

  • FrontPage extensions v5.0 for Linux from Ready-to-Run Software (fp50.linux.tar.gz), available at http://www.rtr.com/.
  • FrontPage patch for Apache 1.3.22 (fp-patch-apache_1.3.22.gz), available at http://www.rtr.com/.
  • (optional) patch for SuEXEC (if you want to use Apache SuEXEC with FrontPage), available here.
  • Apache 1.3.23 from Apache (apache_1.3.23.tar.gz), available at http://httpd.apache.org/.

2. CWD to /usr/src. Unzip/untar both the Apache and FrontPage files:

cd /usr/src
tar zxf /root/apache_1.3.23.tar.gz
tar zxf /root/fp50.linux.tar.gz

3. Patch Apache. The patch was made against Apache 1.3.22, but it seems to work fine for 1.3.23.

cd apache_1.3.23
zcat /root/fp-patch-apache_1.3.22.gz | patch -p0

4. (optional) Apply the SuEXEC patch (if you want to use Apache SuEXEC with FrontPage):

patch -p0 < /root/fp-suexec.patch

5. Compile and install Apache. I recommend compiling mod_frontpage as a static module. All other modules may be compiled as DSO.

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache --add-module=mod_frontpage.c
make
make install
mkdir /usr/local/apache/webs

6. Setup the FrontPage extension files:

cd /usr/src
mv frontpage /usr/local
cd /usr/local/frontpage/version5.0
# setup the suid key
cd apache-fp
dd if=/dev/random of=suidkey bs=8 count=1
# setup file ownership and permissions
cd ..
./set_default_perms.sh

7. Setup a simple Apache configuration. The following configuration directives should be present in your httpd.conf file. I assume you know how to configure apache and where to place these directives in httpd.conf:

NameVirtualHost *

<Directory /usr/local/apache/webs>
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>

<VirtualHost *>
    ServerName testsite.yourdomain.com
    DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache/webs/testsite.yourdomain.com
</VirtualHost>

8. Install the FrontPage extensions for your test virtual host. I assume user www already exists on your system and he has login group www.

mkdir /usr/local/apache/webs/testsite.yourdomain.com
/usr/local/frontpage/version5.0/bin/owsadm.exe -o install -p 80 \
    -s /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf -xu www -xg www \
    -u yourusername -pw yourpassword -m testsite.yourdomain.com

Well, that's it. You should have a working sample virtual host with FrontPage extensions. This document covers just the basics. If you are a good Apache administrator, it should be enough to set up much more complex configurations, with any number of virtual hosts, different ip's and/or ports, PHP and whatever you can think of :)

Web-based administration didn't work for me. I couldn't authenticate to the interface. Moreover, many users have reported that web-based administration only works with Internet Explorer (on other browsers some CGI's are downloaded instead of being executed). Since I can't run Explorer on my Linux box, I didn't insist on getting web administration to work. Command-line administration works just fine and the documentation from Microsoft seems clear enough to me.