Organization of This Book

The chapters that follow and their contents are listed here:

Chapter 1

Covers web servers, how Apache works, TCP/IP, HTTP, hostnames, what a client does, what happens at the server end, choosing a Unix version, and compiling and installing Apache under both Unix and Win32.

Chapter 2

Discusses getting Apache to run, creating Apache users, runtime flags, permissions, and site.simple.

Chapter 3

Introduces a demonstration business, Butterthlies, Inc.; some HTML; default indexing of web pages; server housekeeping; and block directives.

Chapter 4

Demonstrates aliases, logs, HTML forms, shell script, a CGI in C, environment variables, and adapting to the client's browser.

Chapter 5

Explains controlling access, collecting information about clients, cookies, DBM control, digest authentication, and anonymous access.

Chapter 6

Covers content and language arbitration, type maps, and expiration of information.

Chapter 7

Discusses better indexes, index options, your own indexes, and imagemaps.

Chapter 8

Describes Alias, ScriptAlias, and the amazing Rewrite module.

Chapter 9

Covers remote proxies and proxy caching.

Chapter 10

Explains runtime commands in your HTML and XSSI—a more secure server-side include.

Chapter 11

Covers server status, logging the action, and configuring the log files.

Chapter 12

Discusses authentication, blocking, counters, faster CGI, languages, server-side scripting, and URL rewriting.

Chapter 13

Discusses Apache's security precautions, validating users, binary signatures, virtual cash, certificates, firewalls, packet filtering, secure sockets layer (SSL), legal issues, patent rights, national security, and Apache-SSL directives.

Chapter 14

Describes pools; per-server, per-directory, and per-request information; functions; warnings; and parsing.

Chapter 15

Covers status codes; module structure; the command table; the initializer, translate name, check access, check user ID, check authorization and check type routines; prerun fixups; handlers; the logger; and a complete example.

Appendix A

Provides a list of commercial service and/or consultation providers.

Appendix B

Provides a listing of echo.c.

Appendix C

Contains Apache Group internal mail discussing NCSA/Apache compatibility issues.

Appendix D

Provides the SSL specification.

Appendix E

Contains a listing of the full log file referenced in Chapter 11.

In addition, the Apache Quick Reference Card provides an outline of the Apache 1.3.4 syntax.