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Apache: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition
book

Apache: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition

by Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie
December 2002
Intermediate to advanced
588 pages
25h 57m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Apache: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition

How Apache Works

Apache is a program that runs under a suitable multitasking operating system. In the examples in this book, the operating systems are Unix and Windows 95/98/2000/Me/NT/..., which we call Win32. There are many others: flavors of Unix, IBM’s OS/2, and Novell Netware. Mac OS X has a FreeBSD foundation and ships with Apache.

The Apache binary is called httpd under Unix and apache.exe under Win32 and normally runs in the background.[5] Each copy of httpd/apache that is started has its attention directed at a web site , which is, for our purposes, a directory. Regardless of operating system, a site directory typically contains four subdirectories:

conf

Contains the configuration file(s), of which httpd.conf is the most important. It is referred to throughout this book as the Config file. It specifies the URLs that will be served.

htdocs

Contains the HTML files to be served up to the site’s clients. This directory and those below it, the web space, are accessible to anyone on the Web and therefore pose a severe security risk if used for anything other than public data.

logs

Contains the log data, both of accesses and errors.

cgi-bin

Contains the CGI scripts. These are programs or shell scripts written by or for the webmaster that can be executed by Apache on behalf of its clients. It is most important, for security reasons, that this directory not be in the web space — that is, in .../htdocs or below.

In its idling state, Apache does nothing but listen to the ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596002033Errata Page