how to build apache httpd 2.* and beyond on msys2 - apache

Question

httpd build on msys2 fails with the following error:
xml/apr_xml.c:35:19: fatal error: expat.h: No such file or directory
On real linux distros, installing the expat-devel package seems to solve the problem see here,
more precisely, expat-devel is an apr-util prerequisite
and at least its headers ar missing on msys2.
So how to build httpd with msys since no expat-devel package or headers is available ?
When configuring httpd --with-included-apr, where do apr-utils look for expat headers or how to configure that ?
more precisely the CHANGES-APR-UTIL-1.6 documentation says
Changes with APR-util 1.6.0
*) The expat dependency of apr-util is no longer built with
apr-util.
Install expat (including development headers and libraries) first
before building apr-util.
where should expat headers and libs be installed in httpds build directory tree ?

Answer 1

I finally had to build expat separately,
then other errors arised and found a solution thanks to
this link for missing libtool and to that link for the effective way to build expat without generating export redefinition.
let find the full build script here:
pacman -S make gcc libcrypt perl unzip libtool msys/libcrypt-devel
cd OpenSSL_1_1_1-stable
curl http://mirrors.standaloneinstaller.com/apache/httpd/httpd-2.4.38.tar.gz --output httpd-2.4.38.tar.gz
tar xvf httpd-2.4.38.tar.gz
cd $HOME
git clone --branch OpenSSL_1_1_1-stable https://github.com/openssl/openssl.git
mv openssl OpenSSL_1_1_1-stable
cd OpenSSL_1_1_1-stable
./configure gcc --prefix=$HOME/openssl
make
make install
cd $HOME
wget https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/releases/download/R_2_2_6/expat-2.2.6.tar.bz2
tar xjvf expat-2.2.6.tar.bz2
cd $HOME/expat-2.2.6
./configure --prefix=$HOME/httpd --exec-prefix=$HOME/httpd
make
make install
cd $HOME
curl http://mirrors.standaloneinstaller.com/apache//apr/apr-1.6.5.tar.gz --output apr-1.6.5.tar.gz
tar xvf apr-1.6.5.tar.gz
curl http://mirrors.standaloneinstaller.com/apache//apr/apr-util-1.6.1.tar.gz --output apr-util-1.6.1.tar.gz
tar xvf apr-util-1.6.1.tar.gz
cd $HOME/apr-1.6.5
./configure --prefix=$HOME/httpd
make
make install
cd $HOME/apr-util-1.6.1
./configure --prefix=$HOME/httpd --with-apr=$HOME/httpd --with-expat=$HOME/httpd
make
make install
cd $HOME
wget https://ftp.pcre.org/pub/pcre/pcre-8.43.tar.gz
tar xvf pcre-8.43.tar.gz
cd pcre-8.43
./configure --prefix=$HOME/pcre
make
make install
cd $HOME
wget https://github.com/nghttp2/nghttp2/releases/download/v1.37.0/nghttp2-1.37.0.tar.gz
tar xvf nghttp2-1.37.0.tar.gz
cd $HOME/nghttp2-1.37.0
./configure --exec-prefix=$HOME/httpd --prefix=$HOME/httpd
make
make install
cd $HOME/httpd-2.4.38
./configure --prefix=$HOME/httpd --with-expat==$HOME/httpd --with-apr-util=$HOME/httpd --with-apr=$HOME/httpd --with-pcre=$HOME/pcre --enable-ssl --enable-ssl-staticlib-deps --with-ssl=$HOME/openssl --enable-proxy --enable-proxy-connect --enable-proxy-http --enable-proxy-balancer --enable-http2 --enable-nghttp2-staticlib-deps --with-nghttp2=$HOME/nghttp2
make
make install
The build process completed successfully,
but usefull to say that the runtime can't be used since httpd is not able to load its dynamic modules as described here