In this issue

André Malo has been working behind the scenes on improving mod_rewrite in the 2.1 tree, with nearly sixty changes being checked in over the last month including bug fixes, optimisations and numerous cleanups. The backport process continues to ensure that important bug fixes get integrated for future 2.0 releases.

Some interesting applications of the Apache 2.0 filtering architecture emerged as module developer Nick Kew offered four of the modules he has developed for integration into the httpd tree; all four modules are designed specifically as input or output filters. Server administrators running reverse proxies may find mod_proxy_html particularly useful; this module implements an output filter which can rewrite URLs in the HTML content being proxied. Consensus on the list was that at least one of Nick's modules would be considered for inclusion.

In this month's web server survey from Netcraft, Apache gains its highest ever percentage share (63.98%) over the eight years the survey has been running. The survey continues to see large changes in the absolute number of sites using particular server software as domain parking sites switch between different vendors.

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

The pioneer long-awaited book for mod_perl 2.0, "Practical mod_perl" by Stas Bekman and Eric Cholet is now available. You can read the most important chapter of this book, "Chapter 6: Coding with mod_perl in Mind" at WebReference.com and learn how to port an existing CGI script to work under mod_perl.

Russell Dyer presents two scenarios on how name-based Apache Virtual Hosts can help to simplify your life. He also walks through the steps on how to configure Apache to achieve it. SSL enabled Apache is not covered in this article.

PHP5: Coming Soon to a Webserver Near You examines some of the features in PHP5 to justify its existence. Examples of code are provided to illustrate the points and can be downloaded from here.