CraigS.be

I’m not sure how many people out there will actually find this but it was posted on Slashdot today that there is a vuln. in Apache 2.2.14 with one of the Modules. This is clearly a problem for people running Xampp on forward facing servers since the Xampp project is only updated so often. As of this writing, Currently Xampp 1.7.3 is out which contains Apache 2.2.14 which as stated before has a vulnerability. I have however come up with a quick little dirty solution to fix or patch Apache 2.2.14 to Apache 2.2.15.

What you will need:

Xampp 1.7.3 installed
Apache 2.2.15 Installer found here : httpd-2.2.15-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi
Or alternatively you can download the mini version from me: Apache2.2.15 Bin+Modules.rar

Before we embark on this journey..

This is the place where everyone puts their generic posting about doing this on your own terms, nothing is different here either. I am making this post to show you what worked for me, and I can say from my point of view, this will work for you as well. I take no responsibility if this doesn’t work for you, blows up your Xampp directory or anything unforeseen. If you are running a server you have backups and know how to make them / restore.

Lets begin..

1.To start off obviously we should back up our Xampp folder. In this tutorial, we actually only need to backup the /apache/ folder of the xampp installation since that’s all we are changing. You can back this up by simply copying it and pasting the folder to a different directory such as your desktop.

2.After backing up the /xampp/apache/ directory we will then get our new apache install squared away.

To do this, either download the Apache 2.2.15 installer listed above (see 2.a for steps), or the .rar file from my server (If you are doing this, go to  3).

2.a Installing Apache 2.2.15 from site. | Download the installer and run it.

2.b The Main installation wizard will appear, Click Next

2.c Select ‘I accept the terms in the license agreement‘, then Click Next

2.d Click Next

2.e The server information screen will appear, As we are using the configuration settings from our current Xampp 1.7.3, we will just enter in the following, then Click Next:

Network Domain : localhost
Server Name : localhost
Administrator’s Email Address : [email protected]

2.f The Setup Type screen will appear, Choose Typical (Will be selected by default) and Click Next

2.g Click Install

2.h After the program is installed, Click Finish

3. Now that we have it installed, we have the new files we need. Go to the place you installed Apache ( default  C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2/ ) (or the .rar file provided above) and highlight the bin and modules folder, and right click and then go to copy. (Or obviously, if you have the .rar, continue to the next step)

Copy Bin and Modules

4. Next, remote in or access your Xampp directory (remember PLEASE backup before doing this step) Go into the Apache folder and paste in the two folders you copied before. (or extract)

** You will be prompted to overwrite the files, say Yes to any dialog boxes that appear. **

5. After the files are over-written, go into xampp control panel and restart the apache service. ** IT WILL FAIL TO START ** This is normal. What I did was tracked down the error in the \logs\error.log and saw that it reads :

Syntax error on line 122 of C:/xampp/apache/conf/extra/httpd-xampp.conf:
The specified IP address is invalid.

7. Highlight and replace the text with a slightly modified version, clearly you can also modify this for your own network. The new config file for my network looks like:

8. Save the file and Start apache and it should now run with version 2.2.15 with all of your previous configs still intact.