[thelist] mod_rewrite is taking what's left of my hair

[Kevin Martin]

This is curious... client has a working Apache install on Linux,
with a reasonable assortment of modules compiled in (not as DSO).
Asked me to upgrade it, and I said "Why, sure!"  Handed the new
httpd his current, working httpd.conf -- and it promptly spat it
back out saying the rewrite engine can't compile the regexp in
the RewriteCond line below:

 RewriteCond  ${lowercase:%{HTTP_HOST}}  ^(www\.|)([^.]+)\.example\.com$
 RewriteRule  ^(.+)            ${lowercase:%{HTTP_HOST}}$1       [C]
 RewriteRule  ^(www\.|)([^.]+)\.example\.com(.*)  /members/$2$3  [L]

Both Google and DejaGoogle (the newsgroups archive) are singularly
unhelpful.  Has anyone here run into this before, and if so did you
resolve it?   Thanks!

<tip type="building programs from source" author=Digger>
Apache, PHP, OpenSLL -- when you build these and many other packages
for a Unix system, they all follow the same procedure:

  $ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --foo=bar --yada=yada
  $ make
  $ su   # become root for the install step
  % make install

Resist the urge to type ./configure right away, though!  Instead
make a small script out of the ./configure command, including your
chosen options.  I always name this "DO_CONFIG" and save it in
the directory where the source is unpacked.  You'll not only
have a head start on the next release of that package, but when
something blows up, your troubleshooter can quickly determine
how it was built.
</tip>