A patchy server

Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server

Original author(s)	Robert McCool
Developer(s)	Apache Software Foundation
Initial release	1995
Stable release	2.2.17 / October 19, 2010
Preview release	2.3.11-beta / March 7, 2011
Written in	C
Operating system	Cross-platform
Available in	English
Type	Web server
License	Apache License 2.0
Website	http://httpd.apache.org/

The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache (pronounced /əˈpætʃiː/), is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million web site milestone. Apache was the first viable alternative to the Netscape Communications Corporation web server (currently known as Oracle iPlanet Web Server), and has since evolved to rival other web servers in terms of functionality and performance. Typically Apache is run on a Unix-like operating system.

Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation. The application is available for a wide variety of operating systems, including Unix, GNU, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, Novell NetWare, AmigaOS, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, OS/2, TPF, and eComStation. Released under the Apache License, Apache is characterized as open-source software.

Since April 1996 Apache has been the most popular HTTP server software in use. As of February 2011 Apache served over 59.13% of all websites and more than 66.62% of the million busiest.

Features

Apache supports a variety of features, many implemented as compiled modules which extend the core functionality. These can range from server-side programming language support to authentication schemes. Some common language interfaces support Perl, Python, Tcl, and PHP. Popular authentication modules include mod_access, mod_auth, mod_digest, and mod_auth_digest, the successor to mod_digest. A sample of other features include SSL and TLS support (mod_ssl), a proxy module (mod_proxy), a URL rewriter (also known as a rewrite engine, implemented under mod_rewrite), custom log files (mod_log_config), and filtering support (mod_include and mod_ext_filter).

Popular compression methods on Apache include the external extension module, mod_gzip, implemented to help with reduction of the size (weight) of web pages served over HTTP. ModSecurity is an open source intrusion detection and prevention engine for web applications. Apache logs can be analyzed through a web browser using free scripts such as AWStats/W3Perl or .

Virtual hosting allows one Apache installation to serve many different actual websites. For example, one machine with one Apache installation could simultaneously serve www.example.com, www.test.com, test47.test-server.test.com, etc.

Apache features configurable error messages, DBMS-based authentication databases, and content negotiation. It is also supported by several graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

Performance

Although the main design goal of Apache is not to be the "fastest" web server, Apache does have performance comparable to other "high-performance" web servers. Instead of implementing a single architecture, Apache provides a variety of MultiProcessing Modules (MPMs) which allow Apache to run in a process-based, hybrid (process and thread) or event-hybrid mode, to better match the demands of each particular infrastructure. This implies that the choice of correct MPM and the correct configuration is important. Where compromises in performance need to be made, the design of Apache is to reduce latency and increase throughput, relative to simply handling more requests, thus ensuring consistent and reliable processing of requests within reasonable time-frames.

The Apache version considered by the Apache Foundation as providing high-performances is the multi-threaded version which mixes the use of several processes and several threads per process.

While this architecture works faster than the previous multi-process based topology (because threads have a lower overhead than processes), it does not match the performances of the event-based architecture provided by other servers, especially when they process events with several worker threads.

This difference can be easily explained by the overhead that one thread per connection brings (as opposed to a couple of worker threads per CPU, each processing many connection events). Each thread needs to maintain its own stack, environment, and switching from one thread to another is also an expensive task for CPUs.

See also

Overview & Discussions

Proxy-Servers

References

Further reading

External links

• Official website

Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server