hello everyone,

i posted this same topic on the installation forum, but i'm posting it here too, since it could be a newbie question.

i'm new to debian linux (or linux for that matter), and i'm having problems installing apache. i type:

apt-get install apache

everything seems fine, until i get this message:
==========================================
apache: cannot determine host name.
Use the ServerName directives to set it manually.
/usr/sbin/apachectl start: httpd could not be started.

Configuration failed! Run "apacheconfig" to try this again later.
===========================================

what do you think i should do? is it just a matter of changing the text in some configuration files? which ones? help

thanks a lot.

ramel.

if yopu get this message that the hostname cannot be found, this usually means, that there are more then one hostnames set for the same IP.

edit the file /etc/hosts (i think) and the file /etc/hostname

hsotname should contain the FQDN of the local machine.

/etc/hosts should contain:

127.0.0.1 localhost
you.r.ip.add short hostname FQDN (same as in /etc/hostname)

this should solve the problem

cya

thanks raven, i'll try it out.

the main reason i'm trying to set up a web server is to get the cgi-bin working, since i've decided to learn pearl & cgi. i thought i might as well set up a local web server, instead of always uploading stuff to test in sites like prohosting. setting up the apache wasn't as easy as i'd originally thought it was going to be.

i finally bought the book the "linux apache webserver administration" by charles auld. i don't even know what FQDN means, yet. is it the name i gave my computer? i guess i might as well try to know what i'm doing, right?

again, thanks! i'll try it out.

well than have fun reading, and configuring :-)

besides: FQDN is the Fully Qualified Domain Name and yes it is the name of your machine.

format is:

host.domain

cya

raven

again, thanks raven!