Amazon.com info for 'Apache : The Definitive Guide'

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Back to reviews and details of Apache : The Definitive Guide

Amazon.com reviews:

Rating: 2 Summary: Very basic, generalized. Not much there.
Comment If you've used Apache without even reading about any detailed configurations, you'd still not see anything new in this book. I can see this book being a little useful for beginners, but even then, it's not really getting into very detailed information about the configurations and whatnot for module installs/additions. I can see someone new still getting frustrated with this book if they run into a problem.

I picked it up, well, because I buy every O'Reilly book that comes out (seriously) and thought I might be able to find something interesting, useful or that I wasn't aware of or forgot... maybe even a little tip about efficiency, compiling options or just anything of interest.

This is no more useful than the README and INSTALL files that come with Apache's source code. I'm not sure I want to even give this two stars come to think of it. I just don't see the point to this book. A let down coming from O'Reilly.

Rating: 3 Summary: Not for Newbies or Windows Users
Comment Really, this book can be described as the Apache httpd manual in much greater detail.

The book covers pretty much everything you might want to know about running Apache on a *nix or Windows Operating System, but the basic attitude toward Windows users is "If it doesn't work for you - tough luck", which is fine, since Apache really isn't meant to run on Windows as anything more than a test server anyway. Still, I fear that a lot of the Windows folks who are jumping into the Open Source craze may pick this book up and be greatly disappointed.

Another problem I had with the book was the fact that it plays out as more of a step by step manual for setting up specific features of Apache. This makes it fairly difficult to use it for reference later on, but perhaps the idea was that once you got through this book, you could use the web and the manual as a reference instead.

All in all, the book is fairly useful, it just takes some getting used to. If you plan to use it to set up a Windows server, you'd probably be better off braving the various forums and threads out there available to Apache users. However, if you have a good Operating System (BSD, Unix, or Linux), and you want some extra help setting up your Apache server, or setting up specific parts of your Apache server, by all means give this book a shot. It's an above average book, but it's below average by O'Reilly standards.

Rating: 4 Summary: Great Intro Book
Comment Apache the Definitive Guide 2nd Edition

Hallelujah!
I think this book was exactly what I needed. Coming over from the M$ world where everything is a GUI, the httpd.conf file was a bit frustrating. Apache's online documentation was not newbie friendly. This book bridges that gap. I liked the way they begin with NO conf file and explains the Apache errors, and how to fix it in the conf file. The book then goes on adding additional functionality and options.

This book does not explain every configuration option available to Apache, and it is a bit outdated (covers up to version 1.3.n). The book did come with a CD with sample conf files, but I found that I didn't even need to use them. The book is NOT a complete desktop reference, but it helped me understand Apache conf files so now the Apache online documentation makes sense.

This book showed me the ropes and I'm successfully running Apache as my web server, which is all I was trying to do.

Rating: 2 Summary: Where's the Big Picture
Comment The authors jump in with an example configuration, but never explain how each element of the configuration relates to the rest. For example- do alias statements take precedence over <directory> blocks ? Does it matter what order an alias or scriptalias directive appears in your file ? We are never told. In addition, there is a lack of continuity between one experiment in configuration and the next. As other reviewers have pointed out, it's unclear who the intended audience is. I'm sure at some point I'll get some value from the API documentation, but as a newbie to Apache, I've learned considerably more through trial and error on my own than by reading this book.

Rating: 3 Summary: Thought would be a usual "O really!?" :-(
Comment I had been dealing with Apache before I purchased this book, and I tell you, learnt a lot. The feature of the book that I liked the most was illustration servers that they build on each chapter (almost on each chapter). Every single configuration is built upon the previous one. For example, they build the first web server in chapter 2, site.toddle with just the following configuration:

User webuser
Group webgroup
Servername yourmachinename
DocumentRoot /usr/www/site.toddle/htdocs

Then in the following chapters they introduce different issues, and keep adding lines to the above configuration file and building seperate versions of more advanced sites.

However, there're several things that you might wanna be aware of before purchasing this book. Although the above mentioned feature of the book claims it's well-organized, it's not. Some of the directives just pop-up in the middle of the discussion, where they are not supposed to belong. I found that pretty annoying and confusing. I can recall the one about CERN Metafiles in chapter 3. Another annoying thing was the way they introduce directives. Consider the following lines from page 53:

ServerSignature [off|on|email]
Default: off
Directory, .htaccess

[ ...6 line description follows...]

Yes, it reminds me of the Apache's online documentation (which even does way better job than the above cold-blooded description). Of course, one expects more from a book than citing the online documentaion.

If you want to know what kind of audience the book is designed for, my answer is straightforward: I don't know, period! I have a feeling even the authors don't know anything about their potential readers. They try to get as detailed as they can where it doesn't make sence to do so. And when you expect some detail, they just ignore you.

I used the book as a referense during my internship, but it still didn't keep me from having to visit apache.org for more details. Now I am considering buying another book on Apache. I'll let you know :)