September 2005 Archives

I have been involved with Apache programming for several years now. During this time I've been following the main Apache development list and the module programming one. This is how I got to meet Nick Kew, probably the most helpful person on these two lists. (Perhaps on other lists too, but I only follow these two.) Rumours that Nick is writing a book (spread by the author himself) have been circulating for many months now. I am happy to say this is now official; Nick's book, Apache Programming (I am not sure if this is the official title or not) will be published by Prentice Hall in their Open Source Series. Nick has been kind to invite me to help him as a technical reviewer. This is great news for the Apache community! Apache is a fantastic web server but its growth is being slowed down by the lack of proper documentation for programmers. I only wish I had this book a couple of years back when I was starting with ModSecurity!

A new beta version of the Apache web server has been released. This release is important because it is a beta version in the 2.1.x development branch, meaning Apache is one step closer to an official 2.2 version. The most important changes are the refactoring of the authentication/authorisation backend, faster and better caching support, and the much improved mod_proxy with support for load balancing.