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Professional Apache 2.0
Although Apache changed a great deal in its version 2.0, it is a credit to the Apache folk that the config files and command line options have basically remained the same for sys admins. For this reason, the book seems to include a lot of material (CGI security, building, core modules) from the original book. However, a closer look reveals many changes. Almost every chapter includes a discussion about how features differ in both versions of Apache. The book does a good job of giving an overview of Apache's architectural changes and how the use of multi-processing modules (MPM) allow the admin to choose an optimal implementation of apache. This edition, noticeably bigger than the previous one, contains many more examples of how one can extend apache functionality (configuring for binary distribution, setting up virtual interfaces, load sharing). Many sections have been expanded. The discussion of security and SSL is more detailed, yet more succinct; so is the section on content negotiation, (which is twice as long as the previous book), doing proxy server configurations, rsync and benchmarking performance. The discussion on hardening the server was great and up-to-date, although I wish the book spent more time discussing on patching and upgrading.
What is new to the book? We find a longer discussion of graphic administration tools for Windows and Unix, including webmin (which actually I wanted more of). We also have discussions of newer modules such as mod_ruby, mod_python, mod_dav as well as a brief description on how to install tomcat alongside apache. The discussion of mod_dav was especially helpful and interesting to me (and I was especially glad that the author acknowledged the Subversion DAV module, something which is bound to become more important). The php stuff hasn't changed much (although at the time the book was published, 2.0 compatibility with PHP was still an iffy proposition). The book's discussion of mod_perl isn't significantly different, although it does point out migration issues and some additional features.
Generally, the book is clearly written and contains enough examples to find any configuration you want. A few parts required rereading (especially the part about proxies and proxypasses), and occasionally I needed a better explanation of what the example code was supposed to do.
No book can be everything for everybody, and nobody can accuse the book of not having enough content (it is after all more than 700 pages!). I found myself wishing for other things. The book briefly discussed 2.0's support for ipv6, but I longed for a fuller explanation and a more detailed example (Fortunately, I had seen a good ipv6 tutorial on Linux Journal ). Also, I would have liked more information about other web application servers (like zope that Apache sometimes coexists with, content frameworks (such as cocoon) and other goodies produced by the Apache Foundation. The author might legitimately feel that such subjects lie outside the book's scope, but such topics are becoming more important.
In summary: for newbies who are looking for a guide to start with: this is the definitive book to read. It's definitive and a little imposing, but it is well written and logically arranged.
For people already familiar with Apache 1.3 but looking for more depth about ipv6, php, content frameworks or Tomcat, it might be better to read books on those specific subjects instead of this one. Indeed, Wrox will soon be coming out with a book specifically on Apache and Tomcat.
For experienced system administrators, the material in this book may not be terribly new, but they will still appreciate the variety of configuration examples for managing large numbers of virtual hosts and the convenience of having documentation of the 1.3/2.0 differences at their fingertips.
You can purchase Professional Apache 2.0 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The font of the main text was difficult to read after a long day's VDU-gazing. More importantly, some explanations are not expressed clearly enough to allow the meaning to sink in without the occasional paragraph re-read, and some sections could benefit from diagrams to illustrate the points.
Whats the situation with regard to mod_perl with Apache 2.0? Is it ready yet?
Check out MKDoc a mod_perl CMS
I've never seen him on the Apache development list.
If you were going to create the "ultimate reference on web development" out of books you've read... what would you include?
Also see Apache Week Pro Apache 2 review
"Wrox published the definitive book on running the Apache server"
Come on... I have never seen him on dev@httpd.apache.org or users@ mailing lists. There are plenty of better Apache books. For authoritative Apache 2.0 coverage you can get books from Apache group members themselves, such as Teach Yourself Apache 2.0 or Apache 2 Complete reference
ApacheWeek also has a review of this book found here, link
Here is the Amazon link.
This space for rent
OK, I'll use Comanche instead.
Transcript show: self sigs atRandom.
The parent post is just a copy-and-paste karma whore, from this Amazon.com review. Please mod Redundant.
Excellent though the book was, it badly needed updating.
Thanks, Yoda...
I am look for resources on changing the vitural memory for tomcat in windoze..does anyone have suggestions?
No way until then.
Yeah, you can "get it" to work, but when it's good and production stable then I'll consider it...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
a book / reference that is more tuned to writing apache 2 modules? (rather than installation / administration which the ones mentioned so far have been)
thanks
andy
Seems this isn't the first time either... See this
Perhaps, perhaps not. I don't see the moderator point, though.
Anyway, I'd say the Professional Apache is Stronghold.
Not because of any feature because it *is* Apache but because of its support.
Many geeks won't need this but mostcorporations includign the one I work for actually require such software to be properly marketed and supported.
"Properly" stands here for "using a proper contract".
Trolling using another account since 2005.
A couple of years ago I get an interesting e-mail from an "author agent" from Wrox. They were looking to publish a book about Perl and asked if I was interested.
No, not in writing the book -- in writing a chapter. Apparently they go out and find programmers off the Internet to each write a chapter of the book. Well, I thought that was a strange way to run a railroad, but what the hell. I asked her about the compensation package.
$1000. Plus $1000 as an "on-time" bonus. No royalties.
Well, that totally sucked. And on top of that, the deadline was like two weeks away! So I was supposed to write a quality chapter (presumably with lots of tested examples) in two weeks. For $2,000. Yeah right. That's going to produce a quality product.
Ever since then, I've never gone near Wrox books. This one might be different, but screw them. I don't trust them at all.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
If Apache is driving people to Linux, you would think apache.org would run on that instead of FreeBSD.
I just use PHP thru the CGI. I wonder how that is different from the filter module Apache has?
Now if only I could get Apache 2.0.40 to compile with mod_ssl->openssl. It has been a real PITA. Tried both static(.a files) and threaded(.so) compiles on openssl. Tried --enable-ssl=(w/o)shared. Nothing works on this Red Hat 7.2 build.
I belive it to be a problem with Apache compile not fining some gcc file with this gcc version 2.96 on RH7.2. I hate hacked version of linux! But that is about the only thing you get with co-location.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnIn quiry.asp?userid=0ECFT32QIF&isbn=0672317842
But after you get into using PHP/Apache etc more, just use the web:
www.php.net is a prime example of a very, very well executed site that usually gives you all the answers you need.
That and www.devshed.com (no, I'm not affiliated with either so I'm not a pill pusher!) That site should keep you cranking for a month or so.
And here I thought Microsoft Windows was the primary application that drives people to Linux and open source...
I've met quite a few people who have written OReilly books (the **whole** book) so this doesn't seem to be the case. YMMV.
Thanks for the heads up on Wrox -- I never bought them anyway, but now at least I have a reason not to...
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
You may not like the process, but I have several Wrox books, including the first edition of the Apache book reviewed here, and all of them are excellent. When they use the marketing phrase "programmer-to-programmer", they really mean it. Wrox Rocks.
---scott
Uh huh, sure... Watch out on the "most" label. I know of two Fortune 20 corps that use the apache.org version of Apache, and are really annoyed by the fact that Covalent has shifted their focus to supporting only Covalent-supplied versions of Apache.
:)
Although I totally understand Covalent's point of view - they were killing themselves trying to provide support for any weirdly compiled/strangely hacked version of the apache.org source.
Covalent's Raven smokes StrongHold for a pre-built and "properly marketed" Apache distro. Most of the Apache developers are employed by Covalent, and Covalent funds a LOT of the ongoing Apache development.
No, I'm not employed by, or have any financial interested in Covalent, just have been massively impressed with their service and support. We ask for on-site Apache training, they send Ryan Bloom. We look at their Raven package, and they send Dirk-Willem Van Gulik. It's like asking for Linux training and getting Linus fucking Torvalds!
I can comment on this having written material for two of WROX's books (never you mind which ones)...
You are correct in that they prefer "multi-author" books. This achieves a couple of things. First, the book is turned out in a much shorter amount of time. This is a legitimate business model, one that adheres to time-to-market and competitiveness. Of course, it takes a very good editor to manage multiple authors and to coordinate their activities. I wish that I could say that my editor was one of them. Sadly, s/he was not. There was *zero* communication between the authors and, in fact, we didn't even know who the other authors were until we got close to publication time. As a result, we also did not know what was being included in the book. This was unfortunate since it would have resulted in a better product overall. In spite of that, however, the book was very well received and sold quite a bit.
The advantage of the multi-author approach is that it provides us as authors with more time to focus on a particular topic. Furthermore, each author can be picked for their relative area of expertise and right on that. So, for example, with a book on J2EE, the person writing on JMS should be more knowledgeable than the person writing on EJB. Similarly, a person writing about Servlets may not know as much about LDAP. Having each author focus on one or a few topics will (hopefully) provide a better treatment of each topic.
From the perspective of royalties, Wrox isn't all that bad. If you write a single chapter, you get paid $1,000. That might not sound like much but no one writes technical books with the hope of getting rich. Not on royalties, at least. You make it up on the "bragging rights" when you go on a job interview. Although, be warned that in the current economy, this can backfire on you. Many authors, myself included, have had a difficult time finding work because many recruiters assume that our rates will be to high since we are published. So, they don't even bother to ask. Once I removed the book credits (and articles and lectures and....) I started getting a lot of offers.
If you write more than one chapter, you get a cut of the royalties. Wrox pays 10% of the sale price (less returns) as a royaly. This 10% gets split among all of the authors who are participating in royalties (this list does not include those who got paid a set fee). Thus, if a book has 10 authors splitting the royalties, you will get 1% of the sale price. If a book sales at $35, that means that you're getting a whopping 35 cents per book. Less taxes. Like I said, no one writes these things to get rich.
The sad reality of all of this is that you don't end up seeing much money as a result of your efforts. I have received pretty much zilch for my contributions. The only saving grace is that royalty-based authors get a (small) advance.
One major complaint that I have against Wrox is that they treat your work as a "Right-to-hire." Work that I did for one book has since been used in others, with nothing paid to me save a small credit inside. This is akin to musicians not being paid for when their music appears on one of those compilation CD's.
I love the idea of writing a book. I very much would like to do it again. However, I would not do it again with Wrox. If you are an aspiring author, I would strongly suggest O'Reilly or A!Press, both of whom have very solid track records with their author-relationships.
Wrox, my love....you helped me realize a life-long dream and for that I am ever thankful. But like my first real girlfriend, you may have popped my cherry, but you're not the one that I'm going to be spending the rest of my life with.
Score:2? Come on, that's Score:5 'funny because it's true'.
really. wait for the dot one version. if you're a developer and can screw with stuff, good for you, go for it, and sincere thanks for all the beta-testing and bugfixes. if you're just trying to get a job done with a computer in a production environment, wait for dot one every time.
Ahem, that should read "drive people towards BSD and open source." linux is an evil copycat OS which is nothing new and has set back the state of computing by 10 years with its still unstable vm, non-standard networking, and lossy filesystem.
RealityMaster, I actually take offense at that comment but, since you are working from nothing more than conjecture, I'll overlook it.
The fact of the matter is that at the time that I was approached by Wrox, I was speaking at one of the largest technical conferences in the world. Ego had nothing to do with it - it was an opportunity, one which I gladly accepted.
It cannot be considered exploitation if both sides agree to the terms. Again, as I stated above, no one gets rich off of writing a technical book. Some simple math...a "best seller" is any book that sells over 10,000 units. If a book sells at an average of $35, and the author gets 10%, that's a total of $35,000. Most books do not sell 10,000 units. In the case of a multi-author book, if you write 1/10th, you'll get $3,500. Wrox pays royalties based on the number of chapters that you write - so, it's possible that, if someone writes more chapters than you, they'll get a bigger slice of the royalty than you. Simply put, the royalty is a direct reflection of the amount of work that you did.
For my own purposes, joining a multi-author project provided me with the experience of writing a book, without all of the work. This isn't laziness, mind you, but the mere fact that scribing a 500-1000 page tome the first time out can be rather intimidating. Also, there are time contraints involved. It often takes an author over a year, sometimes two, to write a book of substance. Further, working on a collabrative project meant that you wouldn't be "alone" in the effort - that you were more part of a team. While the "alone" part didn't pan out, the reviewers, editors, artists, et. al. were superb. And the next time that I participate in a team project, I'll know to be more proactive in communicating with the other authors.
Ultimately, I wrote the book to achieve two purposes: One, it has always been a goal of mine to get published - to be able to contribute to the technical commuinity that had given so much to me for so many years. I built my career up largely as a direct results of the books that I read. It was great to be able to give something back in return. Two, I am a consultant and a lecturer. Having that book on my resume lends a treemendous amount of credence to my abililties and makes my job a lot easier as my clients and co-workers are less likely to second-guess my suggestions. That is not to say that I am infallible (Lord knows I'm nowhere's near that), but it does help to put my clients at ease in knowing that my opinions can be trusted. The time that it took to do this project was an investment, one that has paid for itself many times over.
And besides, it made my parents real proud.
Lastly, insofar as ego goes, it was thoroughly embarrassing to have my picture on the cover. One thing that I have never understood about Wrox is why they feel it is so important to emphasize the author(s) over the materials. Perhaps it's to humanize the subject matter - to make it seem more accessible. Technology can be vert intimidating to many people - maybe seeing someone's mug on the cover of a book ("gee, they look just like me") makes it less so.
Oh, and lest I forget, the 10% royalty rate is pretty standard, especially for first-time (unproven) authors. Only the very successful (e.g. Martin Fowler) get more and that's still limited to no more than about 20%.
Hi Dominic! It's a nice surprise seeing you here and welcome to Slashdot. It looks as if you joined for the purpose of posting here today. You pretty much beat me to the punch in your response, but it is spot on.
;) However, consider this: my billing rate increased nearly 250% once clients found out that I was an author. And that was with them making offers to me, not necessarily what I was asking. Granted the dot.com days have long past and with it the "sports star" rates, but I think that should be enough to illustrate the effect that publishing can have on the individual.
RealityMaster, you make some valid points regarding compensation and I'm glad to see that you take the other behind-the-scene costs into account. There are a number of additional expenses that you have overlooked (e.g. technical reviewers get a nice bit of change for their efforts) but you have done a good enough job in your coverage. One thing, however, is that despite the fact that the book's list price is $40-60, the sale price is actually much less. The publisher does not get the sale price - the retailer does. The publisher gets the wholesale price which is typically about 60% of the cover price (providing the retailer with about a 40% markup. Thus, using your $40-60 example, the actual gross amount is somewhere closer to $24-36 range, which is $16-24 less per book than your estimate. Dominic, if I am off on this, please feel free to correct me.
Would it have been better if I had been paid more for what I wrote - of course, I like cash just as much as the next guy....probably more
However, to anyone considering writing all or part of a book, I have to warn you: it is a tremendous amount of work, the rewards are not guaranteed, and you can do it for no other reason but for your own love and interest. To do otherwise is folly and you will truly resent your decision. It would be wise to give it a "test run" by writing an article or two first to get a taste of what it takes to write. Also, read the dedications that authors include in their books - there's a reason that they thank their spouses, friends, cats, and (yes, Dominic, I haven't forgotten) their editors.
(Incidentally, I should point out that the reason that I have been posting this thread as an AC is because I had already moderated this thread and didn't want to have that work undone.)