Webmaster in a Nutshell, Third Edition

Chapter 19. Apache Modules

Modules are a key part of Apache. They provide much of the functionality administrators expect in a modern web server, including user tracking, CGI scripting, authentication, SSL, etc. The set of modules distributed with Apache can be divided into a number of groups. Core modules provide the set of directives that are always available to Apache. The Base modules provide a common set of features for the server and are compiled in by default. You have to manually deselect them during compilation to not install them. The Extension modules comprise another set of common and useful server features, but are not required for every server setup. Therefore, they are not compiled by default. The remaining modules are classified as Experimental; they are either not completed to specification, or introduce instability to some environments.

This chapter contains information about the Base and Extension modules and their directives. The modules are present in versions 1.3 and 2.0, and differences in support are noted per version. Table 19-1 shows the Apache modules described in this chapter.

Table 19-1. Standard Apache modules

Module	Compiled	Description
mod_access	✓	Access control
mod_actions	✓	CGI scripting
mod_alias	✓	Aliasing and filesystem mapping
mod_asis	✓	Provides for .asis (as is) files
mod_auth	✓	User authentication
mod_auth_anon		Anonymous user authentication
mod_auth_db		User authentication with DB files. (Apache ...