Getting to Know the Apache Web Server
A Web Hosting Article Contributed by Frances Rhea
What is the Apache Web Server?
Since April 1996, Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet. The October 2004 Netcraft Web Server Survey indicated that over 67% of the web sites on the Internet are using Apache. This makes it more widely used than all other web servers combined.
The Apache web server is a powerful, flexible, HTTP/1.1 compliant web server that
implements the latest protocols. It is highly configurable and extensible with third-party modules that can be customized by creating 'modules' using the Apache module API. It provides full source code and has an unrestrictive license that will run on Windows NT/9x, Netware 5.x and above, OS/2, and most versions of Unix, as well as several other operating systems. Apache is actively being developed and encourages user feedback through new ideas, bug reports and patches.
Apache Web Server Features
Apache.org implements many frequently requested features. These include:
-DBM databases for authentication
-Easily set up for numerous password-protected pages without slowing the server
-Customized responses to errors and problems
-Ability to set up files, or CGI scripts, which the server uses for errors and problems
-Multiple DirectoryIndex directives
-Unlimited flexible URL rewriting and aliasing
-No fixed limit on the numbers of Aliases and Redirects which may be declared in the config files and a powerful rewriting engine to solve most URL manipulation problems
-Content negotiation (i.e. the ability to automatically serve clients of varying sophistication and HTML level compliance)
-Virtual Hosts (sometimes known as multi-homed servers; allows the server to distinguish between requests made to different IP addresses or names)
-Dynamically configurable mass-virtual hosting
-Configurable Reliable Piped Logs (These logs can be generated in the format that you want and on most Unix architectures, Apache can send log files to a pipe, allowing for log rotation, hit filtering, real-time splitting of multiple virtual hosts into separate logs, and asynchronous DNS resolving on the fly.)
Why the Name "Apache" Web Server?
The name 'Apache' was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache (Indé). This tribe was well known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance.
Most people think that the name Apache referred to "A PAtCHy server". Although this is incorrect, it was considered a cute name which stuck since it was based on some code that was previously in existence and a series of "patch files".
Benefits of Apache Web Server
Apache has been shown, through its extensive use by the Web community, to be substantially faster, more stable, and more feature-rich than many other web servers. Some commercial servers claim to surpass Apache's speed but it has not been demonstrated that these benchmarks are an accurate way to measure Web server speed.
Apache's free server is a much better option than an extremely fast web server that can cost thousands of dollars. Apache has been running on sites that get millions of visitors per day without experiencing any performance difficulties.
