Web server administration chap06

 Understand how a Web server works  Install IIS and Apache Web servers  Examine the IIS and Apache properties  Host multiple Web sites  Configure new Web sites in IIS and Apache  U

Web Server Administration

Chapter 6 Configuring a Web Server

 Understand how a Web server works

 Install IIS and Apache Web servers

 Examine the IIS and Apache properties

 Host multiple Web sites

 Configure new Web sites in IIS and

Apache

 Understand virtual directories

How a Web Server Works

 HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) defines how information is passed between a

browser and a Web server

 The two most popular Web servers are

 Apache from Apache Software Foundation

 Internet Information Services (IIS) from

How a Web Server Works

 As is true with other servers such as DNS, Web servers listen for

communication at a port

 The default port is 80

 You can also create Web servers at port numbers greater than 1023*

 Each Web server has a root, which is where you store the HTML documents

Understanding HTTP

 The current version of HTTP is 1.1

 Virtually no browsers are so old that they do not support 1.1

 HTTP is a stateless protocol,

meaning that each Web page sent

is independent of every other Web page sent

 This makes it more challenging to

create a shopping cart application

Understanding HTTP

 HTTP 1.1 supports persistent

connections

 This allows the browser to receive

multiple files in one TCP connection

 This can speed up communication

 Although you see a single page in

your browser, it can be composed of many text and image files

Understanding HTTP

 When the browser sends a request to a

Web server, it looks like:

Understanding HTTP

 The following shows some of the

headers along with the HTML that the Web server would send:

Features in Apache

 Apache 1.3 was used for many years but

version 2.0 was released in 2001

 Apache can also be used as a proxy server

 A proxy server isolates your real Web server from the Internet

 Apache 2.0 has

 Better support for Windows

 Support for IPv6

 Simplified configuration

 Unicode support in Windows

 Multilanguage error responses

 Apache supports many programming

languages such as Perl and PHP

 Windows Server 2003 – IIS 6.0

can send e-mail from your Web pages

Features in IIS 5.0

 Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)

 Allows a server to share Web-based files

 Named virtual hosting

 Multiple Web sites can share a single IP

address

 Per Web site bandwidth throttling

 Control bandwidth by Web site

 Kerberos authentication

 Secure Sockets Layer 3.0

 Encrypted communication

Features in IIS 6.0

 Increased security

 Default permits only HTML documents

 Expanded language support

 Can use XML and SOAP

 Support for IPv6

 Increased dependability

 Kernel-mode HTTP service

 Self-healing mechanism

Components in IIS

 File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server

 To transfer files between user and server

 FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions

 Used by programs to transfer files to and from a Web site

Installing Apache

 Apache can be installed when you

install Linux

 It is also on Red Hat CD 2

 If you install it from the Red Hat CD, the directories will be consistent with other server applications

 If you download it from the Apache Web site, you have to compile it and install it

Start Apache apachectl start

Stop Apache apachectl stop

Restart Apache apachectl restart

Default Web Site Properties in IIS

Tabs on the Default Web

Site Properties Dialog Box

 Operators (Windows 2000) only

 This property lists users who can administer

Web site

 Performance

 Limit bandwidth by Web site

 Limit simultaneous connections (Windows

2003)

 ISAPI Filters

 Specify applications that process HTTP requests

Tabs on the Default Web Site Properties Dialog Box

 Indicates whether Apache should

maintain a persistent connection

 Listen

 Determines the port number for the server

 Default is 80

Hosting Multiple Web Sites

Hosting Multiple Web Sites

by IP Address

 You can create multiple IP addresses on

a single NIC

 Referred to as virtual IP addresses

 Useful for flexibility because if each

domain has its own unique IP address, you can easily move the domain to a

different Web server

 It is getting more expensive to get

multiple IP addresses from an ISP

Hosting Multiple Web Sites

 You can host an almost unlimited

number of domains with a single IP

address

 It is the most common method of

hosting

Configuring a Virtual Host Based on an IP Address in Apache

 In /etc/rc.d/rc.local, add an IP address such as:

</VirtualHost>

Configuring a Virtual Host

Based on a Host Name in

Apache

 NameVirtualHost defines the common IP address

 Multiple configurations repeat the same IP

address and define unique ServerName settings

Configuring a Virtual

Directory in Apache

 The following associates the virtual

directory called prod with the location of the directory

Alias /prod/ “/var/www/prod/”

 Then it configures the directory

<Directory “/var/www/prod”>

AllowOverride None

Order allow, deny

Allow from all

</Directory>

 You can create multiple Web sites

on a single computer by adding

port numbers, IP addresses, and/or host names

 Virtual directories are directories

that appear to be located beneath the root, yet are physically located elsewhere