Linux System Administration

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Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Administering Apache

In this chapter, we’ll build a Linux web server from scratch. You’ll learn how to:

• Install and configure Apache, PHP, and MySQL

• Manage multiple web sites with virtual hosts

• Encrypt sensitive pages with SSL

• Enable server-side includes and CGI scripts

• Test for performance and security problems

• Install vlogger and Webalizer to view site statistics

• Install Drupal, a content management system that you’ll find useful in many

environments and that uses many of these elements

This chapter describes an environment with a single web server; in Chapter 7, we’ll

show you how to set up a pair of web servers for load balancing.

Web servers are large and complex, and when configuring them it isn’t always clear

how or why things are done. Along the way, we’ll point out why we have chosen

some alternatives and passed by others. To keep explanations short and simple, we’ll

use standard Debian procedures and defaults. We’ll secure the installations as we go,

to underscore the lesson that you have to think about security and build it in from

the start. Toward the end of the chapter, you’ll find the “Troubleshooting” section.

Static and Dynamic Files

A basic web site consists of files: HTML, graphics, JavaScript, stylesheets, and other

types. The contents of these files are static—they don’t change on the server, and the

only job of the web server is to return them to the browser on request. A web server

needs only a little configuration to serve static files.

Many sites have some dynamic aspects, too, including content generation, access

control, and database storage and retrieval. The simplest way to make static HTML

files dynamic is with server-side includes (SSI), which are specially formatted HTML