In this issue

The documentation project has made several advancements recently with the XML-based documentation; the manual is currently being translated into several non-English languages, the results of which are now available, in varying states of completeness. The man pages are now also being generated from the same XML sources used to generate the HTML.

Ken Coar's patches to conditionally allow the use of URIs with an encoded slash character (covered previously) have now been committed to the stable 2.0 branch, and can be enabled using the AllowEncodedSlashes directive.

If you've visited the O'Reilly Convention web site recently you'll probably have noticed a cute Apache Week logo. Apache Week are proud to be media sponsors for the 2003 annual Open Source Convention being held this year in Portland Oregon from July 7-11. Past conferences have had a heavy Apache bias, and this year is no different with a dedicated Apache track and more than a dozen Apache sessions and tutorials featuring some well known Apache developers including Stas Bekman, Greg Stein, Justin Erenkrantz, and Rich Bowen. In addition there are complete tracks relating to PHP, MySQL, XML, and so much more that you'll have as many problems as we always do deciding which sessions to attend.

Apache Week will be there to give you the lowdown on the event (and the parties!) but it's nothing like being there yourself and meeting the experts. Registration is now open and you can get a large discount if you register before May 23rd.

Read the Apache Week review of the 2002 convention, the 2001 convention, and the 2000 convention.

Billed as the "world's leading gathering place for anyone and everyone interested in Linux and other open source technologies", LinuxWorld Conference and Expo makes its way to San Francisco from August 4-7th 2003. Apache Week has visited LinuxWorld in the past although we spent nearly all our time on the expo floor talking to the companies that were doing things with Apache and ended up missing all the talks.

This time at the conference you can hear from Apache expert and occasional Apache Week author, Paul Weinstein, who is talking about how to get up and running with Apache 2.0 on Linux. Apache Week's own editor, Mark J Cox, will also be there talking about "Security Response and Vendor Accountability for Open Source Software," drawing directly on his experience of the way the Apache group deal with security issues.

Find out more from the LinuxWorld website

In this section we highlight some of the articles on the web that are of interest to Apache users.

The February 2003 issue of Linux Magazine talks about two third-party Apache modules in "Throttling Apache" and "mod_security". The first article explains how mod_throttle enables you to control bandwidth usage within a server, virtual host, directory, and location context, and also track and regulate incoming requests by client IP addresses, authenticated remote users, or local user IDs according to policies that require a size and a time limit. Then it shows you how to build it as a Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) module, install it, and implement a few policies for a real-life scenario. Meanwhile the latter gives a brief overview of mod_security and provides a few examples of how its directives can be configured to secure your Web-enabled applications.

Rich Bowen allows us a glimpse into the future Apache 2.2 in "Safer Apache Driving with AAA". First of all, he defines the terms authentication, authorisation, and access control (AAA), and then highlights the major differences in the AAA code between the development branch of the Apache 2.0 tree and Apache 2.0.45, and ends with the benefits of this change.

"mod_deflate and Apache 2.0.x" compares the results of compression using mod_deflate in Apache 2.0.x against mod_gzip in Apache 1.3.x despite the different compression algorithm used. The conclusion is that although mod_deflate came in second, it is still an effective way to save bandwidth.

If you plan to drop by your local bookstore this weekend, be sure to check out these book reviews before your trip: "Apache Server 2.0: The Complete Reference", "Professional Apache Tomcat", and "Apache: The Definitive Guide". Who knows, you may be tempted to add these books to your shopping list! But then again, you may perhaps drop them from your list.