I Already Googled It

So, for this Linux Systems Administration course I’m currently taking, we had the pleasure (?) of choosing a “project” and doing it on Linux servers that we’d been carefully building, adding to, and maintaining throughout the term.

I—being an unashamed M$ fanboy—chose to install and configure mono, XSP, and mod_mono.

Turns out that this was a bad idea.  Then again, being that it’s Linux we’re dealing with, what wouldn’t've been a bad idea?  Being like half the class and just typing yum install webmin?

No…that’s just not how I roll…

Anyway, we were making a wiki, so I couldn’t just install and then configure, and then tinker and tinker until it was just right, and then call it a day, which has pretty much been my approach with all the labs so far.  I had to get the installation and configuration down to a science.  So it makes a good blog post to save other souls from my 3 hour ordeal.

That’s right.  3 hours to make Linux do something Windows Server 2008 R2 does just by adding the IIS “feature“.  But that’s to be expected—it’s Linux.

Anyway.  You’ll find a lot of tutorials on-line which give you horribly convoluted information on how to get mono/mod_mono installed and working.  Being that they’re horribly convoluted, they’re not of much help.  I’m pretty sure they’re the result of people taking the approach I spoke of, and then trying to convert that into instructions…

…which doesn’t go so well.

So you’re going to want to install mono itself—and all its components—on CentOS (which is what we’re using) this is yum groupinstall mono.

Then you’re going to want to get XSP.  If you’re using CentOS this is yum install xsp.  Be careful if you’ve installed the mono repos, however, when you try and yum install xsp, the CentOS repos will feed you a CentOS version, and the mono repos will try and feed you the RHEL version, and then you’ll have two versions, and it won’t work at all—first-hand experience talking here—so for the love of your sanity, be pro-active using yum list to see if there are two packages, and then just use yum install with the specific one that’s suited to you.

Last, you need mod_mono itself.  If you’re using CentOS this is yum install mod_mono.  The advisory from above still applies.

Now that you’re got everything installed, you’re ready to configure.

You’re probably expecting me to launch into lines and lines of things copy pasted from httpd.conf, but that’s just not how I roll.

I’m going to give you the link that saved my ass (that’s it right there).  After 2 hours getting mod_mono working (albeit barely), I got in my head to tinker with it (this usually happens to me…I’m too curious for my own good) and wound up somehow, mysteriously, breaking it.  Then it was another hour (or an hour-and-a-half…time just melts away while you’re fighting with Linux) going back through all those horribly convoluted instructions, which wound up all being bunk in the end.

So use the link, and don’t read those other instructions.

Oh, and don’t forget to restart Apache after you do your configuration.

There’s the proof.