Apache Web Server

Course Description

In this three-day hands-on course students learn how to build, install, configure, and maintain an Apache Web server. Web-related issues such as enabling dynamic Web content, Web server security, virtual hosting as well as system performance issues are covered in this course.

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Describe the evolution of Apache Web Server to its current architecture.
• Build, install, configure and maintain an Apache Web server in an UNIX/Linux environment.
• Monitor server activity and configure log files and log file analysis tools.
• Enable dynamic Web content with CGI scripts, Perl, Server-side includes, JSP and PHP.
• Seamlessly connect Apache with Tomcat.
• Restrict access to Apache Web Server by basic authentication, IP address, browser type and other methods.
• Enable IP-based, named-based, and port-based virtual hosting.
• Enable secure electronic transactions with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and digital certificates.
• Track user sessions with cookies.
• Extend Apache by integrating popular third-party modules.
• Use Apache as a proxy server.

Course Benefits

Apache is the most widely deployed Web server on the Internet, offering excellent performance and stability. In this course, students build a complete Web server solution from scratch and gain hands-on experience installing, configuring, extending and maintaining Apache to provide secure and reliable Web services.

Who Should Attend

This course is valuable for anyone involved in setting up a Web server, or anyone planning to implement or maintain a Web-based solution on UNIX/Linux systems.

Prerequisite

To ensure your success, we recommend you first take either our Introduction To UNIX course or our Introduction To Linux course, or have the equivalent knowledge. Familiarity with Web browsers, a text editor, and basic UNIX/Linux command line interface is assumed.

Method Of Instruction

Lecture, demonstrations, several short interactive quizzes, and numerous hands-on exercises.

Hands-on Exercises

Throughout this course, students perform a series of extensive hands-on exercises, culminating in the deployment of a fully functional e-commerce application running on Apache, including:

• Unpacking, compiling, building and configuring Apache
• Customizing the Apache default configuration
• Configuring and monitoring Apache log files
• Installing Open Source log analysis tool to view logs graphically in your browser
• Examine Environment Variables with CGI
• Enabling and running Server-Parsed HTML
• Server-side processing with Perl
• Enabling and running PHP
• Installing Tomcat, and seamlessly connecting Apache with Tomcat to run Java servlets
• Using security directives and customized password files to control access to your Web site
• Manage large user populations with mod_mysql
• Setting up a Domain Name System (DNS) to enable virtual hosting
• Configuring Apache for virtual hosting
• Downloading and certifying Apache updates and modules
• Enabling secure transactions with SSL
• Setting a cookie with mod_usertrack
• Enabling Fancy Indexing
• Creating Personal Web Pages
• Uploading Web pages with Cadaver
• Setting up the Apache Web Server to act as proxy server

Course Outline

Chapter 1: Introduction to Apache Web Server

• Apache Web Server Evolution
• Apache Architecture and Features
• Apache's Role in the Internet
• The Open Source paradigm
• Who uses Apache

Chapter 2: Unpacking, Building and Installing Apache

• Obtaining Apache software
• Uncompressing Apache Files
• Building and Installing Apache Web Server
• Customizing Apache with configure
• Starting and Stopping Apache with apachectl

Chapter 3: Configuring Apache

• Differences between Apache 1.3 and Apache 2.0 and Apache 2.2 and Apache 2.4
• httpd options
• Organizing the httpd.conf file
• Containers and other directives
• Dynamic Shared Objects
• Measuring performance with ab

Chapter 4: Monitoring Server Activity

• Activity and error tracking with log files
• The Common Log Format (CLF)
• Creating custom logs
• Enabling and administering the logging process
• Limiting the size of log files
• Displaying server activity and build information
• Log analysis tools such as wwwstat and analog

Chapter 5: Server-side Processing

• Delivering Dynamic Web Content
• Apache's Role in the Dynamic Web
• Develop a Dynamic Web Model
• Environment Variables
• Enabling and Securing CGI scripts
• Communicating with CGI programs
• Implementing server-side includes with mod_include
• Adding Perl functionality with mod_perl
• Extending Apache with mod_php
• Supporting Java servlets with Tomcat
• Seamlessly connecting Apache with Tomcat

Chapter 6: Security

• The UNIX security model
• Authenticating users
• Restricting access by IP address
• Restricting access by domain name
• Restricting access by User ID
• Restricting access by group membership
• Restricting access by browser type
• Managing large user populations

Chapter 7: Virtual Web Hosting

• How DNS works
• Setting up a DNS to resolve names
• Assigning IP addresses with ifconfig
• IP-based virtual hosting
• Named-based virtual hosting
• Port-based virtual hosting
• Massive virtual hosting
• Comparing and contrasting virtual hosting solutions
• Load balancing with IP Mirroring

Chapter 8: Enabling Secure Transactions

• The need for secure transactions
• Symmetric and asymmetric key encryption
• Verifying software integrity with GPG
• Installing digital certificates
• Adding mod_ssl to Apache
• Enabling secure transactions with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Chapter 9: Extending Apache with Modules

• Built-in and third-party modules
• Adding modules into Apache
• Enabling cookies with mod_usertrack
• Adding multilingual support to your Web server
• Setting Apache to be a Proxy Server with ProxyPass
• Aliases and Redirection
• Fancy Indexing
• Managing directories with mod_dir
• Creating personal Web pages
• Uploading with Cadaver
• Server-side image maps with mod_imap
• Making your Apache Web Server Section 508 compliant