Linux Apache Web Server Administration
Charles Aulds
Craig Hunt Linux Library
Sybex Press

Well, I tried to be very critical of this book, because, after all, I want you to buy my book. But it really is very good.

It has thorough converage of all important topics. I found a number of places where information was wrong, but most of these were probably attributable to typesetting errors, rather than author errors. Missing parentheses, for example.

The examples were, for the most part, excellent, with good supporting explantions. Diagrams were good too – not gratuitous, but actually useful in most cases.

If I’m going to complain about something, it would be that there is no clear distinction made of when he’s talking about 1.3, and when 2.0. Or is it all 2.0? I’m really not sure. Some of it appears to be 1.3 specific, but other places he’s very clearly talking about 2.0, although this is not mentioned in the text, and might not be clear to other folks.

Overall, recommended and thorough.

(The book was given to me by the publisher, but I did not receive any other incentive to say nice things about it.)

I wanted to write a mod_perl handler that would read vhost configurations out of a database. However, it made more sense, at least to get something working quickly, do to this as a <Perl> section in the configuration file

I guess this could be done as a mod_perl handler instead, and I hope to eventually do it that way (mostly as an exercise, actually) but here it is the way I have it working:

#
#
# create table vhosts
#   (ID  int(11) not null auto_increment,
#    servername  varchar(255),
#    serveralias  varchar(255),
#    docroot      varchar(255),
#    scriptalias  varchar(255),
#    primary key (ID)
#   )
#
#  Note: serveralias can be a space-separated list. Change the field to
#  a text field if you have more than 255 characters of aliases.
#        scriptalas should have a trailing slash
#

<Perl>

use DBI;

my $db       = 'DBI:mysql:vhosts';
my $login    = 'www';
my $password = 'www';

my $dbh = DBI->connect( $db, $login, $password );
my $sth = $dbh->prepare( "SELECT servername, serveralias,
                                 docroot, scriptalias
                            FROM vhosts " );
$sth->execute;
$sth->bind_columns( my ( $servername, $serveralias, 
                          $docroot, $scriptalias ) );
while ( $sth->fetch ) {
    push @{$VirtualHost{'*'}},  {
        ServerName   => $servername,
        ServerAlias  => $serveralias,
        DocumentRoot => $docroot,
        ScriptAlias  => "/cgi-bin/ $scriptalias",
    };
}
$sth->finish;
$dbh->disconnect;

</Perl>

This goes in httpd.conf, and requires mod_perl. And, of course, you can add additional fields if you need them, like ErrorLog and CustomLog.

Hacking Log 2.0

Well, Andy, I seem to have been just as misunderstood as you, and I humbly apologize for appearing to take pot-shots at you. I really did not mean to offend, either by my comments here, or my comments on the mailing list.

You have good ideas, and people are probably overly anxious to criticize, when they could spend that time making constructive contributions. And, without any sarcasm, I admire your passion, your drive, and your obvious desire to get stuff done. It seems that too many of us have lost that over the years.

What I, personally, took umbrage at, was the implication that the processes put in place were there purely to slow down the wheels of progress. You say that you did not intend that implication, and I accept that, and withdraw my comments, with apologies for accusing you of those ideas.

I cannot take up on your offer to fill in those documents and processes, because, clearly, I understand them even less than you do. HTTPd is a world apart from the exciting bleeding-edge projects that go on in the rest of the ASF, and many of us are just as happy it is that way. If nothing else, it makes the books sell better.

I’m sorry I came across as being critical of you personally, or of your obvious passion for the projects that you are part of. As I tried to express on the mailing list, when I ask “why the heck are things the way they are”, I am usually genuinely asking that question, not saying “you are a bad and evil person for making things that way.”

And, just so I’m not disingenuosly hiding behind an alias, I am the guy in the picture there.