Laurie Ben - Apache: the definitive guide

Apache: The Definitive Guide, Third Edition, isprincipally about the Apache web-server software. We explain what aweb server is and how it works, but our assumption is that most ofour readers have used the World Wide Web and understand in practicalterms how it works, and that they are now thinking about runningtheir own servers and sites.

This book takes the reader through the process of acquiring,compiling, installing, configuring, and modifying Apache. We exercisemost of the packages functions by showing a set ofexample sites that take a reasonably typical web business inour case, a postcard publisher through a process of developmentand increasing complexity. However, we have deliberately tried tomake each site as simple as possible, focusing on the particularfeature being described. Each site is pretty well self-contained, sothat the reader can refer to it while following the text withouthaving to disentangle the meat from extraneous vegetables. Ifdesired, it is possible to install and run each site on a suitablesystem.

Perhaps it is worth saying what this book is not. It is not a manual, in the sense of formally documentingevery command such a manual exists on the Apache site and hasbeen much improved with Versions 1.3 and 2.0; we assume that if youwant to use Apache, you will download it and keep it at hand. Rather,if the manual is a road map that tells you how to get somewhere, thisbook tries to be a tourist guide that tells you why you might want tomake the journey.

In passing, we do reproduce some sections of the web site manualsimply to save the reader the trouble of looking up the formaldefinitions as she follows the argument. Occasionally, we found themanual text hard to follow and in those cases we have changed thewording slightly. We have also interspersed comments as seemed usefulat the time.

This is not a book about HTML or creating webpages, or one about web security or even about running a web site.These are all complex subjects that should be either treatedthoroughly or left alone. As a result, a webmasterslibrary might include books on the following topics:

Apache: The Definitive Guide is just one of thesix or so possible titles in the fourth category.

Apache is a versatile package and is becoming more versatile everyday, so we have not tried to illustrate every possible combination ofcommands; that would require a book of a million pages or so. Rather,we have tried to suggest lines of development that a typicalwebmaster could follow once an understanding of the basic concepts isachieved.

We realized from our own experience that the hardest stage oflearning how to use Apache in a real-life context is right at thebeginning, where the novice webmaster often has to get Apache, ascripting language, and a database manager to collaborate. This canbe very puzzling. In this new edition we have therefore included agood deal of new material which tries to take the reader up theseconceptual precipices. Once the collaboration is working, developmentis much easier. These new chapters are not intended to be anexperts account of, say, the interaction betweenApache, Perl, and MySQL but a simplebeginners guide, explaining how to make thesethings work with Apache. In the process we make some comments, fromour own experience, on the merits of the various software productsfrom which the user has to choose.

As with the first and second editions,writing the book was something of a race withApaches developers. We wanted to be ready as soonas Version 2 was stable, but not before the developers had finishedadding new features.

In many of the examples that follow, the motivation for what we makeApache do is simple enough and requires little explanation (forexample, the different index formats in ) before making sensibledecisions about his sites configuration, and wehave not hesitated to branch out to deal with them.