Open SUSE® 11.0 and SUSE® Linux® Enterprise Server Bible

Chapter 16. Setting Up a Web Site with the Apache Web Server

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Hosting a web site

• Configuring the Apache web server

• Securing your server

• Creating dynamic content for your web site

• Configuring the web server using YaST

Tim Berners-Lee's first public description of the concepts and practice of the World Wide Web was made in a posting on the alt.hypertext news group in August 1991 (coincidentally, the same month in which Linus Torvalds announced a little project that he was doing).

Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first web server and browser. The U.S. National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) developed a web server called NCSA HTTPd and the Mosaic web browser. Development of NCSA HTTPd came to a halt when its original creator Robert McCool left the NCSA in mid-1994. But a number of patches were developed by third parties. These were collected by Brian Behlendorf and the original NSCA HTTPd web server was developed as a result of patching it with these various improvements. It was originally called Apache because it was, therefore, "a patchy web server."

Apache has always been licensed freely, so it satisfies all the definitions of Free and Open Source Software. As such, it is as much of an Open Source success story as Linux itself. The Apache Software Foundation oversees the development and direction of the Apache project.

Since 1996, Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet. It has lost some share recently, but should still be regarded as the de facto ...