Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 306 pages
- Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
- Edition: 2nd Edition January 11, 2008
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0596529945
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596529949
-
Book Dimensions:
9 x 7 x 0.9 inches
- Weighs: 1.1 pounds
Product Description
There's plenty of documentation on installing and configuring the Apache web server, but where do you find help for the day-to-day stuff, like adding common modules or fine-tuning your activity logging? That's easy. The new edition of the Apache
cook book offers you updated solutions to the problems you're likely to encounter with the new versions of Apache. Written by members of the Apache
software Foundation, and thoroughly revised for Apache versions 2.0 and 2.2, recipes in this book range from simple tasks, such installing the server on Red Hat Linux or Windows, to more complex tasks, such as setting up name-based virtual hosts or securing and managing your proxy server. Altogether, you get more than 200 timesaving recipes for solving a crisis or other deadline conundrums, with topics including: Security Aliases, Redirecting, and Rewriting CGI Scripts, the suexec Wrapper, and other dynamic content techniques Error Handling SSL Performance This book tackles everything from beginner problems to those faced by experienced users. For every problem addressed in the book, you will find a worked-out solution that includes short, focused pieces of code you can use immediately. You also get explanations of how and why the code works, so you can adapt the problem-solving techniques to similar situations. Instead of poking around mailing lists, online documentation, and other sources, rely on the Apache
cook book for quick solutions when you need them. Then you can spend your time and energy where it matters most.
About The Author
Rich Bowen has been involved with the Apache Web Server project since 1998, and has written a number of books about it. He works on the web team at Asbury College, where he gets to put into practice a few of the things he writes about. Rich lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
Ken Coar is a member of the Apache
software Foundation, the body that oversees Apache development. He is the author of "Apache Server for Dummies" and co-author of "Apache Server Unleashed" (Sams). Ken is responsible for fielding email sent to the Apache project; his experience with that mailing list provided a foundation for this book. Ken is a resident of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Apache Cookbook (Paperback)
While Apache is possibly the most popular and ubiquitous open source project it is certainly not the most simple. One module alone, mod_rewrite, causes me almost more problems and regex wrestling matches than all other products combined. The `httpd.conf' file is a long and critical one. In these circumstances the Apache Cookbook from O'Reilly might be a godsend. It is certainly a well-written, well-researched volume. Ken Coar has spent many years working on Apache and Rich Bowen has long laboured on the Apache documentation. They both know their stuff -- and if this is an example, both know how to write. The book has twelve chapters, covering everything from installation and adding modules through to proxies and performance. The chapter on security is the largest, it covers the topics well. By contrast I thought the chapter `Aliases, Redirection and Rewriting' too short and could have benefited from some more `recipes', but that may be due to my own bias - mod_rewrite is not an easy topic, and as I've said it causes me a great deal of grief. It is laid out in a similar way to the Perl Cookbook: each recipe has a `Problem' section followed by a `Solution' and then `Discussion.' In almost all the `recipes' the `Discussion' is longer than the `Solution,' and I often found it far more useful and informative than the problem and its solution. The Apache Cookbook covers almost all aspects and all parts of the learning curve for Apache. That will either be a strength or a weakness of this volume for you; with such a large and complex piece of software as Apache a single book cannot hope to cover it in a great deal of depth. For me this book was not really a cookbook, more a good source of well documented examples from which to create my own recipes, My biggest problem reviewing a book like this is that after several years building and configuring Apache (even on an infrequent basis) quite a lot of this volume seems simple. You may also find it the same if you are the sort of person who is not afraid to pore over the documentation, get your hands dirty and make a few mistakes. If you like some hand holding and are just starting with Apache you may benefit from all of it. That's not to say that I didn't personally find large chunks of this volume useful. Certainly I've gone over several of the recipes and their excellent explanatory text to shed some light on previously dark corners of Apache, particularly as the authors cover both Apache 1.3 and 2.0. O'Reilly have the usual web page with a Table of Contents and example chapter. The example chapter, on error handling is well chosen as it is typical of the others and useful but not the most useful chapter. I have recently been thinking that tech books fall into various sorts and there is one sort I'd call `library books' - books you may not need to own, but will want to read every so often and would be good to have in your local or company library. Apache Cookbook is one of these, a book I'd recommend everyone coming to grips with Apache has close to hand, but it is not going to be constantly on your desk in the same way that Perl Cookbook might be for Perl programmers: to start off with, it's half the size and doesn't cover nearly as many topics. This one falls short of essential due to it's concentration on breadth. rather than depth. So my recommendation for this book is not that all Apache administrators should buy it, but you should have a copy close at hand.
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