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As an open-source Web server, Apache Server has many user contributions available in the form of server modules and commercial distributions. Perhaps Apache Server's greatest strengths are its huge amount of end-user support, nearly universal platform support, and rapid bug fixes and product cycles. Although not as robust and feature-rich as Netscape's or Microsoft's offerings, Apache Server does fit the bill for a large number of configurations, and it's free.

Apache Server uses server modules to add functionality to the core HTTP server; these can be dynamically loaded at run-time or statically compiled into the binary beforehand. To ensure that we got the best possible performance out of our Apache Server builds, we compiled the server with a minimal number of modules. Modules included at compile time are as follows:

mod_log_config for logging
mod_mime for MIME-type support and SSI
mod_cgi for our Perl-based CGI scripts
mod_include for SSIs
mod_perl
mod_env, also for SSIs

Apache Server's performance was generally a bit worse than that of Netscape and Microsoft's servers, particularly on the SSI tests.

Configuring and managing the Apache Server is done almost entirely from the command line or text editor. Other utilities, such as the Comanche Project, do provide a GUI interface for Apache Server on most supported platforms including Solaris, Win32 and Linux. Although the Comanche GUI was helpful while we were getting started, we found ourselves avoiding it in favor of manually editing configuration files. To the program's credit, Apache Server's base source code and precompiled binary distributions contain loads of configuration documentation and sample files. Each section of the file was prefaced with a detailed explanation outlining options.

The biggest advantage of using Apache Server as a production Web server is the support available online. Popping into an IRC channel or Web-based message board and asking a few questions is usually all that's necessary to solve common problems. New functionality is added almost daily to the Apache Software Foundation product line. Projects in the works include the Java Apache project, aimed at providing improved support for Java-based technologies; Apache JServ, a Java Servlet module for Apache Server; Apache JSSI, which allows servlets to generate dynamic content from within JHTML Web pages; and MOD_JAVA, which allows for future Apache Module development in Java rather than C.

Apache Server versions 1.3 and higher use a new batch configuration method called APACI (Apache Autoconf-style Interface), which greatly simplifies the installation and configuration procedure. Although we had no problems getting the base Apache Server built and installed, we didn't have much experience adding modules to the configuration. Since mod_perl was not included in the base Apache Server distribution, we had to download the source files and build them along with the Apache Server distribution. Using APACI, we succeeded the first time through and would expect first-time users to have few problems getting up and running in a similar configuration.

Apache Web Server, open source, Apache Software Foundation, fax (410) 803-2258. www.apache.org or apache@apache.org

Send your comments on this article to Gregory Yerxa at gyerxa@nwc.com.