In this issue

"Administering Apache" is the latest in Osborne Media's "Administering" series. This book differentiates itself from the other Apache books available by approaching the task of setting up a web server from a management perspective, by explaining the management issues involved, guiding the users through the initial stage of planning, and setting up the necessary policies after taking into account the concerns and major considerations for various strategies.

Although "Administering Apache" is hot off the press, the same cannot be said of its contents. Inconsistencies on the version of Apache used can be found throughout the book, with mentions of apache_1.3.6 in a few chapters and apache_1.3.9 in others. The author is also confused about the SSL additions for Apache, telling the reader that "SSLeay is an application programmer interface to the OpenSSL library" and that you need SSLeay and OpenSSL in order to use Apache-SSL.

Its target audience comprises Internet Service Providers who aim to provide more secure services, web developers, applications programmers, right up to the corporate system administrator. For professional web administrators or experienced Apache users, this book will not add much to your already in-depth knowledge of Apache, but you might still be attracted to read it for its strategies, server management tips, and policies - as well as for its entertaining qualities.

[Read our full review]

VA Linux and MySQL have joined forces to make MySQL an open-source technology. The idea is to help accelerate development and use of the popular database query language - one of the most popular for Linux. This means MySQL has become available under the GPL allowing programmers from around the globe to contribute to the development of the project. MySQL can be integrated easily with Apache, and PHP provides a perfect interface between the two.

Qube Quorner reveal that Apache 1.3.12 comes second to AOLserver 3.0 in terms of requests/second and transfer speeds. Tested using Apache Bench, the benchmark utility supplied with Apache, Apache is thrashed by AOLserver 3.0 but still holds its own against Zope. Tests were performed on RedHat 6.2, on a Dell P3-700 with 256 MB of RAM. Benchmarks do not give a true picture of the speed of a web server, since they provide an environment unlike the real use of the software. Commercial software is often tuned to perform well in benchmarks, so a good performance simply indicates that the software works well for that benchmark, not that it has good real-world performance.

Martin C. Brown's latest article in Apache Today explains how to create template-driven pages to simplify administrative tasks. It explains how to configure Apache to include HTML files into template pages so you can have a site which you can re-design with minimum effort.

Stas Bekman, author for "the mod_perl guide" and Apache Software Foundation member, takes the effort out of installing mod_perl by providing a way to get it up and running in 30 minutes. Ideal if you've been slightly daunted by it in the past.

Thanks to the eagle-eyed readers who spotted the problems with one of the articles that we featured in last weeks Apache Week (issue #204). In part two of "Learning Perl/CGI for Apache," Geeks404 give a CGI script that displays data passed in from a form. However as we reported in February, (issue #188), without proper encoding when displaying entered data, users can embed malicious HTML tags. This type of attack can be used, for example, to steal users cookies.