[Mapserver-users] problems installing mapscript on linux

[Aaron Kreider]

I'm trying to install mapscript on linux. I am having problems (for the past week, I'm 
going crazy =). I'm renting space on a webserver, so I don' t have root access. I 
have jail shell access.

Note: I'm a linux novice, and have only attempted to compile one or two programs in 
C/C++ and am thus generally unfamiliar with make files. So links to general tutorials 
where I could read about such things, would help.

Can I install it by myself (eg, can I do it without root access)?  Or can I do part of it 
by myself?  If so, what kind of information do I need from my tech support and what 
tasks do I need them to do for me?

So far I've tried installing mapscript.so as a precompiled module that I downloaded 
from http://www.phpgis.org/download/php_mapscript.zip

I think one stumbling block is that my site is running PHP as compiled for Apache, 
instead of PHP in CGI. When I run phpinfo, it says that the Server API is Apache. Do 
I need tech support to reinstall PHP?  Or install a second copy of PHP that I could 
use (so the first copy could stay the same for general use)?

(Note: I'm familiar with the Wiki page on Mapscript and PHP as CGI and pointed my 
tech support people to it... though they still haven't made much progress.)

Hmm... Could I install my own version of PHP, and rewrite my .htaccess file to 
access that?  Does that sound like a good idea?

Aaron