Apache Cookbook™

1. Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Installing from Red Hat Linux’s Packages 2
1.2 Installing from Debian Packages 3
1.3 Installing Apache on Windows 4
1.4 Downloading the Apache Sources 11
1.5 Building Apache from the Sources 13
1.6 Installing with ApacheToolbox 14
1.7 Starting, Stopping, and Restarting Apache 16
1.8 Uninstalling Apache 17
1.9 Which Version of Apache to Use 20
1.10 Upgrading Using config.nice 21
1.11 Starting Apache at Boot 22
1.12 Useful configure Options 23
1.13 Finding Apache’s Files 25
2. Adding Common Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.1 Installing a Generic Third-Party Module 28
2.2 Installing mod_dav on a Unixish System 28
2.3 Installing mod_dav on Windows 31
2.4 Installing mod_perl on a Unixish System 33
2.5 Installing mod_php on a Unixish System 35
2.6 Installing mod_php on Windows 36
2.7 Installing mod_ssl 37
2.8 Finding Modules Using modules.apache.org 38
2.9 Installing mod_security 39
2.10 Why Won’t This Module Work? 40
3. Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Getting More Details in Your Log Entries 46
3.2 Getting More Detailed Errors 473.3 Logging POST Contents 49
3.4 Logging a Proxied Client’s IP Address 50
3.5 Logging Client MAC Addresses 51
3.6 Logging Cookies 51
3.7 Not Logging Image Requests from Local Pages 53
3.8 Rotating Logfiles at a Particular Time 54
3.9 Rotating Logs on the First of the Month 55
3.10 Logging Hostnames Instead of IP Addresses 56
3.11 Maintaining Separate Logs for Each Virtual Host 57
3.12 Logging Proxy Requests 58
3.13 Logging Errors for Virtual Hosts to Multiple Files 59
3.14 Logging Server IP Addresses 60
3.15 Logging the Referring Page 61
3.16 Logging the Name of the Browser Software 62
3.17 Logging Arbitrary Request Header Fields 63
3.18 Logging Arbitrary Response Header Fields 64
3.19 Logging Activity to a MySQL Database 64
3.20 Logging to syslog 65
3.21 Logging User Directories 67
4. Virtual Hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.1 Setting Up Name-Based Virtual Hosts 70
4.2 Designating One Name-Based Virtual Host as the Default 72
4.3 Setting Up Address-Based Virtual Hosts 73
4.4 Creating a Default Address-Based Virtual Host 74
4.5 Mixing Address-Based and Name-Based Virtual Hosts 74
4.6 Mass Virtual Hosting with mod_vhost_alias 75
4.7 Mass Virtual Hosting Using Rewrite Rules 77
4.8 Logging for Each Virtual Host 78
4.9 Splitting Up a Logfile 79
4.10 Port-Based Virtual Hosts 80
4.11 Displaying the Same Content on Several Addresses 81
4.12 Defining Virtual Hosts in a Database 81
5. Aliases, Redirecting, and Rewriting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.1 Mapping a URL to a Directory 83
5.2 Creating a New URL for Existing Content 85
5.3 Giving Users Their Own URLs 86
5.4 Aliasing Several URLs with a Single Directive 89
5.5 Mapping Several URLs to the Same CGI Directory 89
5.6 Creating a CGI Directory for Each User 90
5.7 Redirecting to Another Location 91
5.8 Redirecting Several URLs to the Same Destination 935.9 Permitting Case-Insensitive URLs 94
5.10 Showing Highlighted PHP Source without Symlinking 94
5.11 Replacing Text in Requested URLs 96
5.12 Rewriting Path Information to CGI Arguments 97
5.13 Denying Access to Unreferred Requests 98
5.14 Redirecting Unreferred Requests to an Explanation Page 99
5.15 Rewriting Based on the Query String 100
5.16 Redirecting All—or Part—of Your Server to SSL 100
5.17 Turning Directories into Hostnames 101
5.18 Redirecting All Requests to a Single Host 102
5.19 Turning Document Names into Arguments 103
5.20 Rewriting Elements between Path and Query String 103
5.21 Rewriting a Hostname to a Directory 104
5.22 Turning URL Segments into Query Arguments 105
5.23 Using AliasMatch, ScriptAliasMatch, and RedirectMatch 105
6. Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.1 Using System Account Information for Web Authentication 109
6.2 Setting Up Single-Use Passwords 110
6.3 Expiring Passwords 111
6.4 Limiting Upload Size 113
6.5 Restricting Images from Being Used Off-Site 115
6.6 Requiring Both Weak and Strong Authentication 116
6.7 Managing .htpasswd Files 117
6.8 Making Password Files for Digest Authentication 119
6.9 Relaxing Security in a Subdirectory 120
6.10 Lifting Restrictions Selectively 122
6.11 Authorizing Using File Ownership 124
6.12 Storing User Credentials in a MySQL Database 125
6.13 Accessing the Authenticated Username 126
6.14 Obtaining the Password Used to Authenticate 127
6.15 Preventing Brute-Force Password Attacks 128
6.16 Using Digest Versus Basic Authentication 129
6.17 Accessing Credentials Embedded in URLs 130
6.18 Securing WebDAV 131
6.19 Enabling WebDAV Without Making Files Writable by the
Web User 132
6.20 Restricting Proxy Access to Certain URLs 133
6.21 Protecting Files with a Wrapper 134
6.22 Protecting Server Files from Malicious Scripts 136
6.23 Setting Correct File Permissions 137
6.24 Running a Minimal Module Set 140
6.25 Restricting Access to Files Outside Your Web Root 1426.26 Limiting Methods by User 143
6.27 Restricting Range Requests 144
6.28 Rebutting DoS Attacks with mod_evasive 145
6.29 Chrooting Apache with mod_security 147
6.30 Migrating to 2.2 Authentication 148
6.31 Blocking Worms with mod_security 149
6.32 Mixing Read-Only and Write Access to a Subversion Repository
150
6.33 Using Permanent Redirects to Obscure Forbidden URLs 151
7. SSL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.1 Installing SSL 153
7.2 Installing SSL on Windows 155
7.3 Generating Self-Signed SSL Certificates 155
7.4 Generating a Trusted CA 160
7.5 Serving a Portion of Your Site via SSL 161
7.6 Authenticating with Client Certificates 163
7.7 SSL Virtual Hosts 164
7.8 Wildcard Certificates 166
8. Dynamic Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
8.1 Enabling a CGI Directory 167
8.2 Enabling CGI Scripts in Non-ScriptAliased Directories 168
8.3 Specifying a Default Document in a CGI Directory 169
8.4 Using Windows File Extensions to Launch CGI Programs 171
8.5 Using Extensions to Identify CGI Scripts 172
8.6 Testing that CGI Is Set Up Correctly 173
8.7 Reading Form Parameters 176
8.8 Invoking a CGI Program for Certain Content Types 179
8.9 Getting SSIs to Work 180
8.10 Displaying Last Modified Date 182
8.11 Including a Standard Header 183
8.12 Including the Output of a CGI Program 184
8.13 Running CGI Scripts as a Different User with suexec 184
8.14 Installing a mod_perl Handler from CPAN 186
8.15 Writing a mod_perl Handler 187
8.16 Enabling PHP Script Handling 189
8.17 Verifying PHP Installation 190
8.18 Parsing CGI Output for Server Side Includes 190
8.19 Parsing ScriptAlias Script Output for Server-Side Includes 191
8.20 Getting mod_perl to Handle All Perl Scripts 192
8.21 Enabling Python Script Handling 1939. Error Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
9.1 Handling a Missing Host Field 195
9.2 Changing the Response Status for CGI Scripts 196
9.3 Customized Error Messages 197
9.4 Providing Error Documents in Multiple Languages 198
9.5 Redirecting Invalid URLs to Some Other Page 199
9.6 Making Internet Explorer Display Your Error Page 200
9.7 Notification on Error Conditions 201
10. Proxies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
10.1 Securing Your Proxy Server 203
10.2 Preventing Your Proxy Server from Being Used as an Open
Mail Relay 205
10.3 Forwarding Requests to Another Server 205
10.4 Blocking Proxied Requests to Certain Places 207
10.5 Proxying mod_perl Content to Another Server 207
10.6 Configuring a Caching Proxy Server 208
10.7 Filtering Proxied Content 209
10.8 Requiring Authentication for a Proxied Server 210
10.9 Load Balancing with mod_proxy_balancer 211
10.10 Proxied Virtual Host 212
10.11 Refusing to Proxy FTP 213
11. Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
11.1 Determining How Much Memory You Need 216
11.2 Benchmarking Apache with ab 217
11.3 Tuning KeepAlive Settings 218
11.4 Getting a Snapshot of Your Site’s Activity 220
11.5 Avoiding DNS Lookups 221
11.6 Optimizing Symbolic Links 222
11.7 Minimizing the Performance Impact of .htaccess Files 223
11.8 Disabling Content Negotiation 225
11.9 Optimizing Process Creation 227
11.10 Tuning Thread Creation 228
11.11 Caching Frequently Viewed Files 229
11.12 Distributing Load Evenly Between Several Servers 231
11.13 Caching Directory Listings 232
11.14 Speeding Up Perl CGI Programs with mod_perl 233
11.15 Caching Dynamic Content 235
12. Directory Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
12.1 Generating Directory/Folder Listings 237
12.2 Display a Standard Header and Footer on Directory Listings 23912.3 Applying a Stylesheet 240
12.4 Hiding Things from the Listing 240
12.5 Searching for Certain Files in a Directory Listing 241
12.6 Sorting the List 242
12.7 Allowing a Client-Specified Sort Order 242
12.8 Specifying How the List Will Be Formatted 244
12.9 Allowing the Client to Specify the Formatting 244
12.10 Adding Descriptions to Files 245
12.11 Autogenerated Document Titles 246
12.12 Changing the Listing Icons 246
12.13 Listing the Directories First 247
12.14 Ordering by Version Number 248
12.15 Allowing the End User to Specify Version Sorting 248
12.16 Complete User Control of Output 249
12.17 Don’t Allow the End User to Modify the Listing 250
12.18 Suppressing Certain Columns 251
12.19 Showing Forbidden Files 251
12.20 Aliases in Directory Listings 252
13. Miscellaneous Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
13.1 Placing Directives Properly 253
13.2 Renaming .htaccess Files 255
13.3 Generating Directory/Folder Listings 256
13.4 Solving the “Trailing Slash” Problem 257
13.5 Setting the Content-Type According to Browser Capability 259
13.6 Handling Missing Host: Header Fields 259
13.7 Alternate Default Document 260
13.8 Setting Up a Default “Favicon” 261
13.9 Directory Listings in ScriptAliased Directories 261
13.10 Enabling .htaccess Files 263
13.11 Converting IBM/Lotus Server-Side Includes to Apache 264
A. Using Regular Expressions in Apache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
B. Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279