Table Of ContentCopyright
Preface
Who Wrote Apache, and Why?
The Demonstration Code
Conventions Used in This Book
Organization of This Book
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Getting Started
Section 1.1. What Does a Web Server Do?
Section 1.2. How Apache Works
Section 1.3. Apache and Networking
Section 1.4. How HTTP Clients Work
Section 1.5. What Happens at the Server End?
Section 1.6. Planning the Apache Installation
Section 1.7. Windows?
Section 1.8. Which Apache?
Section 1.9. Installing Apache
Section 1.10. Building Apache 1.3.X Under Unix
Section 1.11. New Features in Apache v2
Section 1.12. Making and Installing Apache v2 Under Unix
Section 1.13. Apache Under Windows
Chapter 2. Configuring Apache: The First Steps
Section 2.1. What's Behind an Apache Web Site?
Section 2.2. site.toddle
Section 2.3. Setting Up a Unix Server
Section 2.4. Setting Up a Win32 Server
Section 2.5. Directives
Section 2.6. Shared Objects
Chapter 3. Toward a Real Web Site
Section 3.1. More and Better Web Sites: site.simple
Section 3.2. Butterthlies, Inc., Gets Going
Section 3.3. Block Directives
Section 3.4. Other Directives
Section 3.5. HTTP Response Headers
Section 3.6. Restarts
Section 3.7. .htaccess
Section 3.8. CERN Metafiles
Section 3.9. Expirations
Chapter 4. Virtual Hosts
Section 4.1. Two Sites and Apache
Section 4.2. Virtual Hosts
Section 4.3. Two Copies of Apache
Section 4.4. Dynamically Configured Virtual Hosting
Chapter 5. Authentication
Section 5.1. Authentication Protocol
Section 5.2. Authentication Directives
Section 5.3. Passwords Under Unix
Section 5.4. Passwords Under Win32
Section 5.5. Passwords over the Web
Section 5.6. From the Client's Point of View
Section 5.7. CGI Scripts
Section 5.8. Variations on a Theme
Section 5.9. Order, Allow, and Deny
Section 5.10. DBM Files on Unix
Section 5.11. Digest Authentication
Section 5.12. Anonymous Access
Section 5.13. Experiments
Section 5.14. Automatic User Information
Section 5.15. Using .htaccess Files
Section 5.16. Overrides
Chapter 6. Content Description and Modification
Section 6.1. MIME Types
Section 6.2. Content Negotiation
Section 6.3. Language Negotiation
Section 6.4. Type Maps
Section 6.5. Browsers and HTTP 1.1
Section 6.6. Filters
Chapter 7. Indexing
Section 7.1. Making Better Indexes in Apache
Section 7.2. Making Our Own Indexes
Section 7.3. Imagemaps
Section 7.4. Image Map Directives
Chapter 8. Redirection
Section 8.1. Alias
Section 8.2. Rewrite
Section 8.3. Speling
Chapter 9. Proxying
Section 9.1. Security
Section 9.2. Proxy Directives
Section 9.3. Apparent Bug
Section 9.4. Performance
Section 9.5. Setup
Chapter 10. Logging
Section 10.1. Logging by Script and Database
Section 10.2. Apache's Logging Facilities
Section 10.3. Configuration Logging
Section 10.4. Status
Chapter 11. Security
Section 11.1. Internal and External Users
Section 11.2. Binary Signatures, Virtual Cash
Section 11.3. Certificates
Section 11.4. Firewalls
Section 11.5. Legal Issues
Section 11.6. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
Section 11.7. Apache's Security Precautions
Section 11.8. SSL Directives
Section 11.9. Cipher Suites
Section 11.10. Security in Real Life
Section 11.11. Future Directions
Chapter 12. Running a Big Web Site
Section 12.1. Machine Setup
Section 12.2. Server Security
Section 12.3. Managing a Big Site
Section 12.4. Supporting Software
Section 12.5. Scalability
Section 12.6. Load Balancing
Chapter 13. Building Applications
Section 13.1. Web Sites as Applications
Section 13.2. Providing Application Logic
Section 13.3. XML, XSLT, and Web Applications
Chapter 14. Server-Side Includes
Section 14.1. File Size
Section 14.2. File Modification Time
Section 14.3. Includes
Section 14.4. Execute CGI
Section 14.5. Echo
Section 14.6. Apache v2: SSI Filters
Chapter 15. PHP
Section 15.1. Installing PHP
Section 15.2. Site.php
Chapter 16. CGI and Perl
Section 16.1. The World of CGI
Section 16.2. Telling Apache About the Script
Section 16.3. Setting Environment Variables
Section 16.4. Cookies
Section 16.5. Script Directives
Section 16.6. suEXEC on Unix
Section 16.7. Handlers
Section 16.8. Actions
Section 16.9. Browsers
Chapter 17. mod_perl
Section 17.1. How mod_perl Works
Section 17.2. mod_perl Documentation
Section 17.3. Installing mod_perl — The Simple Way
Section 17.4. Modifying Your Scripts to Run Under mod_perl
Section 17.5. Global Variables
Section 17.6. Strict Pregame
Section 17.7. Loading Changes
Section 17.8. Opening and Closing Files
Section 17.9. Configuring Apache to Use mod_perl
Chapter 18. mod_jserv and Tomcat
Section 18.1. mod_jserv
Section 18.2. Tomcat
Section 18.3. Connecting Tomcat to Apache
Chapter 19. XML and Cocoon
Section 19.1. XML
Section 19.2. XML and Perl
Section 19.3. Cocoon
Section 19.4. Cocoon 1.8 and JServ
Section 19.5. Cocoon 2.0.3 and Tomcat
Section 19.6. Testing Cocoon
Chapter 20. The Apache API
Section 20.1. Documentation
Section 20.2. APR
Section 20.3. Pools
Section 20.4. Per-Server Configuration
Section 20.5. Per-Directory Configuration
Section 20.6. Per-Request Information
Section 20.7. Access to Configuration and Request Information
Section 20.8. Hooks, Optional Hooks, and Optional Functions
Section 20.9. Filters, Buckets, and Bucket Brigades
Section 20.10. Modules
Chapter 21. Writing Apache Modules
Section 21.1. Overview
Section 21.2. Status Codes
Section 21.3. The Module Structure
Section 21.4. A Complete Example
Section 21.5. General Hints
Section 21.6. Porting to Apache 2.0
Appendix A. The Apache 1.x API
Section A.1. Pools
Section A.2. Per-Server Configuration
Section A.3. Per-Directory Configuration
Section A.4. Per-Request Information
Section A.5. Access to Configuration and Request Information
Section A.6. Functions
Colophon
Index
Copyright
Copyright © O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol,
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While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and
authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
the use of the information contained herein.
Preface
Apache: The Definitive Guide, Third Edition, is principally about the Apache web-server
software. We explain what a web server is and how it works, but our assumption is that
most of our readers have used the World Wide Web and understand in practical terms
how it works, and that they are now thinking about running their own servers and sites.
This book takes the reader through the process of acquiring, compiling, installing,
configuring, and modifying Apache. We exercise most of the package's functions by
showing a set of example sites that take a reasonably typical web business — in our case,
a postcard publisher — through a process of development and increasing complexity.
However, we have deliberately tried to make each site as simple as possible, focusing on
the particular feature being described. Each site is pretty well self-contained, so that the
reader can refer to it while following the text without having to disentangle the meat from
extraneous vegetables. If desired, it is possible to install and run each site on a suitable
system.
Perhaps it is worth saying what this book is not. It is not a manual, in the sense of
formally documenting every command — such a manual exists on the Apache site and
has been much improved with Versions 1.3 and 2.0; we assume that if you want 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, this book tries to be a tourist guide that tells you why
you might want to make the journey.
In passing, we do reproduce some sections of the web site manual simply to save the
reader the trouble of looking up the formal definitions as she follows the argument.
Occasionally, we found the manual text hard to follow and in those cases we have
changed the wording slightly. We have also interspersed comments as seemed useful at
the time.
This is not a book about HTML or creating web pages, or one about web security or even
about running a web site. These are all complex subjects that should be either treated
thoroughly or left alone. As a result, a webmaster's library might include books on the
following topics:
• The Web and how it works
• HTML — formal definitions, what you can do with it
• How to decide what sort of web site you want, how to organize it, and how to
protect it
• How to implement the site you want using one of the available servers (for
instance, Apache)
• Handbooks on Java, Perl, and other languages
• Security
Apache: The Definitive Guide is just one of the six or so possible titles in the fourth
category.
Apache is a versatile package and is becoming more versatile every day, so we have not
tried to illustrate every possible combination of commands; that would require a book of
a million pages or so. Rather, we have tried to suggest lines of development that a typical
webmaster could follow once an understanding of the basic concepts is achieved.
We realized from our own experience that the hardest stage of learning how to use
Apache in a real-life context is right at the beginning, where the novice webmaster often
has to get Apache, a scripting language, and a database manager to collaborate. This can
be very puzzling. In this new edition we have therefore included a good deal of new
material which tries to take the reader up these conceptual precipices. Once the
collaboration is working, development is much easier. These new chapters are not
intended to be an experts' account of, say, the interaction between Apache, Perl, and
MySQL — but a simple beginners' guide, explaining how to make these things work with
Apache. In the process we make some comments, from our own experience, on the merits
of the various software products from which the user has to choose.
As with the first and second editions, writing the book was something of a race with
Apache's developers. We wanted to be ready as soon as Version 2 was stable, but not
before the developers had finished adding new features.
In many of the examples that follow, the motivation for what we make Apache do is
simple enough and requires little explanation (for example, the different index formats in
Chapter 7). Elsewhere, we feel that the webmaster needs to be aware of wider issues (for
instance, the security issues discussed in Chapter 11) before making sensible decisions
about his site's configuration, and we have not hesitated to branch out to deal with them.
Who Wrote Apache, and Why?
Apache gets its name from the fact that it consists of some existing code plus some
patches. The FAQFAQ is netspeak for Frequently Asked Questions. Most sites/subjects
have an FAQ file that tells you what the thing is, why it is, and where it's going. It is
perfectly reasonable for the newcomer to ask for the FAQ to look up anything new to her,
and indeed this is a sensible thing to do, since it reduces the number of questions asked.
Apache's FAQ can be found at http://www.apache.org/docs/FAQ.html. thinks that this is
cute; others may think it's the sort of joke that gets programmers a bad name. A more
responsible group thinks that Apache is an appropriate title because of the
resourcefulness and adaptability of the American Indian tribe.
You have to understand that Apache is free to its users and is written by a team of
volunteers who do not get paid for their work. Whether they decide to incorporate your or
anyone else's ideas is entirely up to them. If you don't like what they do, feel free to
collect a team and write your own web server or to adapt the existing Apache code — as
many have.
The first web server was built by the British physicist Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, the
European Centre for Nuclear Research at Geneva, Switzerland. The immediate ancestor
of Apache was built by the U.S. government's NCSA, the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications. Because this code was written with (American) taxpayers'
money, it is available to all; you can, if you like, download the source code in C from
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu, paying due attention to the license conditions.
There were those who thought that things could be done better, and in the FAQ for
Apache (at http://www.apache.org ), we read:
...Apache was originally based on code and ideas found in the most popular HTTP server
of the time, NCSA httpd 1.3 (early 1995).
That phrase "of the time" is nice. It usually refers to good times back in the 1700s or the
early days of technology in the 1900s. But here it means back in the deliquescent bogs of
a few years ago!
While the Apache site is open to all, Apache is written by an invited group of (we hope)
reasonably good programmers. One of the authors of this book, Ben, is a member of this
group.
Why do they bother? Why do these programmers, who presumably could be well paid for
doing something else, sit up nights to work on Apache for our benefit? There is no such
thing as a free lunch, so they do it for a number of typically human reasons. One might
list, in no particular order:
• They want to do something more interesting than their day job, which might be
writing stock control packages for BigBins, Inc.
• They want to be involved on the edge of what is happening. Working on a project
like this is a pretty good way to keep up-to-date. After that comes consultancy on
the next hot project.
• The more worldly ones might remember how, back in the old days of 1995, quite
a lot of the people working on the web server at NCSA left for a thing called
Netscape and became, in the passage of the age, zillionaires.
• It's fun. Developing good software is interesting and amusing, and you get to meet
and work with other clever people.
• They are not doing the bit that programmers hate: explaining to end users why
their treasure isn't working and trying to fix it in 10 minutes flat. If you want
support on Apache, you have to consult one of several commercial organizations
(see Appendix A), who, quite properly, want to be paid for doing the work
everyone loathes.
The Demonstration Code
The code for the demonstration web sites referred to throughout the book is available at
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/apache3/. It contains the requisite README file with
installation instructions and other useful information. The contents of the download are
organized into two directories:
install/
This directory contains scripts to install the sample sites:
install
Run this script to install the sites.
install.conf
Unix configuration file for install.
installwin.conf
Win32 configuration file for install.
sites/
This directory contains the sample sites used in the book.
Conventions Used in This Book
This section covers the various conventions used in this book.
Typographic Conventions
Constant width
Used for HTTP headers, status codes, MIME content types, directives in
configuration files, commands, options/switches, functions, methods, variable
names, and code within body text
Constant width bold
Used in code segments to indicate input to be typed in by the user
Constant width italic
Used for replaceable items in code and text
