A book by Mohammed J. Kabir

Structure of the book

The book is structured in six parts, starting from httpd server installation and ending covering the performance and scalability of the Apache Server. Even it was written long time ago, the book still remains a good reading to understand how Apache httpd server runs and how to administrate it for optimal functionality.

Part I: Getting Started

In this part the author explains how to get Apache up and running with minimal changes to the default configuration files so that you can get Apache httpd server up and running on your system as quickly as possible. You can install httpd server on Linux and/or Windows machines.

Part II: Website Administration

This part focuses on typical Web administration tasks such as virtual Web-site creation, user authentication and authorization tasks, monitoring, logging, rewriting and redirecting URLs, proxy service, and the like. You learn a great deal there is to know about creating and managing virtual Web sites. You master various methods of user authentication, authorization, and access control techniques. You learn to monitor Web servers and to customize log files for analysis.

Part III: Running Web Applications

The practice of serving static HTML pages is almost a thing of the past. These days, most popular Web sites have a great deal of dynamic content. People do not visit Web sites that do not change frequently. Therefore, it is important to know how to enable dynamic contents using CGI scripts, Server Side Includes, FastCGI applications, PHP, mod_perl scripts, and Java servlets. This part shows you how to use all of these technologies with Apache.

Part IV: Securing Your Web Site

Ensuring Web site security is a critical part of a Web administrator’s job. In this part, the author discuss the various security issues that can arise with Apache, and how to resolve these issues by using various tools, techniques, and policies or guidelines. He also shows you how to turn your Apache server into a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) – capable Web server using either the mod_ssl or Apache-SSL modules. You are also introduced to the potential risks of running SSI and CGI programs and how to take preventive measures to avoid these risks.

Part V: Running Apache on Windows

As the title says, you will learn hot to install and run Apache on a 32 bits Windows platform. With Apache 2.0, the performance of Apache Web server under this platform has become very promising. I am using too, as a localhost environment and so far so good.

Part VI: Tuning for Performance and Scalability

Like any good application, Apache can be fine-tuned beyond the initial configuration for higher performance.
In this part, the author shows you how to speed up Apache by tuning the configuration, and you will also learn how to create a scalable Web server network using multiple Apache Web server systems.

Conclusions

A comprehensive book about how to install, configure and tweak the Apache httpd server. Examples accompanied the subjects debated. A good start for reading about the Apache httpd Server.

References

The book itself. Well, I did not find any direct link to the official publisher’s site. Wiley is the successor of Hungry Minds, but doesn’t have any records about this book. If you search on Google about the title’s book you’ll even find an electronic format of it.