Another 64-bit Headache Installing Apache on CentOS 5.3

Published July 25th, 2009

We planned to upgrade an existing 64-bit CentOS 5 server this weekend. The upgrade caused a bit of a headache that is worth documenting for future reference.

Getting CentOS 5 Upgraded to CentOS 5.3

This went like a breeze as all we did is run: nohup yum –y upgrade & and in the background the CentOS upgrade continued for about 30 minute – just perfect for a coffee in front and a bit of channel surfing. Once the upgrade was done, the fun began.

Getting Apache 2.2.11 Compiled

Typically Apache install on a 32-bit system is very peaceful and simple. However, when we tried to compile Apache, it keeps failing to find the right 64-bit library files. So we included the –with-lib=/lib64 in the configuration command and also made sure that /etc/ld.so.conf has a line: /lib64 in it. Even we ran: ldconf –vp to make ld’s library cache file update.

However, we were getting the same Berkeley DB missing error that pointed to a library in the /usr/lib which stores 32-bit version. CentOS yum updates install both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the same library. But even with clear instructions to Apache configuration command to load libraries from /lib64 path did not do much to help.

Finally after digging a lot on the net, we found that there is a Apache run-time developer’s package that got installed that is the culprit.  Running:  yum list apr-devel verified that we have the culprit. So just running: yum remove apr-devel to get rid of the package and running: configure && make && make install for Apache did the magic tric.

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