The Apache Server and PHP

The Apache HTTP server is the project of the Apache software Foundation. It was created in an effort to develop and maintain an open-source HTTP server that was secure, efficient and extensible for modern operating systems including UNIX and Windows NT.

History

The history of Apache starts with Rob McCool, the creator of the public domain HTTP daemon. The first version of the Apache web server, simply known as NCSA HTTPd at this time Rob was involved with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, NCSA. But he left NCSA in mid-1994 halting the development of HTTPd.

By this time many webmasters had developed their own extensions and bug fixes that were in need of a common distribution. They got together to coordinate their changes (in the form of "patches"). Brian Behlendorf, Roy T. Fielding, Rob Hartill, David Robinson, Cliff Skolnick, Randy Terbush, Robert S. Thau, Andrew Wilson, were the eight core contributors, with help from Eric Hagberg, Frank Peters, and Nicolas Pioch. Together they formed the first Apache Group.

According to the company "The name 'Apache' was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache (Indé), known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance." However,the initial statement on the project's is that the name comes from the fact that when it was developed in early 1995, the web server consisted a set of patches to the codebase of NCSA HTTPd 1.3 and was therefore "a patchy" server.

The Appache Ideology

Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation. Released under the Apache License, the Apache HTTP Server is free software. There is a core group of contributors, formed initially of the project founders, which is increased from time to time by other outstanding contributors. The contributors often contribute back to Apache by providing feature enhancements, bug fixes, and support for others in public lists and newsgroups.

The Apache web server

1. Is a powerful, flexible, HTTP/1.1 compliant web server
2. Implements the latest protocols, including HTTP/1.1 (RFC2616)
3. Is highly configurable and extensible with third-party modules
4. Can be customised by writing 'modules' using the Apache module API
5. Provides full source code and comes with an unrestrictive license
6. Runs on Windows NT/9x, Netware 5.x and above, OS/2, and most versions of Unix, as well as several other operating systems
7. Is actively being developed
8. Encourages user feedback through new ideas, bug reports and patches
9. Implements many frequently requested features, including:
Customized responses to errors and problem
DBM databases for authentication
Multiple Directory
Index directives
Unlimited flexible URL rewriting and aliasing
Content negotiation
Virtual Hosts
Configurable Reliable Piped Logs

The Apache + PHP Connection

Apache is the most commonly used web server application on the Internet, with PHP web development tools as an add-on package that provides database connectivity to the web server allowing dynamic web content. Together they form a dynamic package Hypertext Preprocessor or PHPis a reflective programming language originally designed for producing dynamic Web pages A dynamic Web page is a page that interacts with the user, so that each user visiting the page sees customized information. Dynamic Web applications are prevalent in e-commerce sites, where the content shown is generated from information accessed from a database or any other external source.

PHP web development offers an easy and universal solution for programming dynamic Web pages. The intuitive interface allows programmers to embed PHP commands right in the HTML page.

PHP web development is the popular choice for developers on Linux machines running Apache server software, PHP runs equally well on any other UNIX or Windows platform, with Netscape or Microsoft Web server software. PHP also supports HTTP sessions, Java connectivity, regular expressions, LDAP, SNMP, IMAP, COM (under windows) protocols. It also supports WDDX complex data exchange between virtually all Web programming languages. PHP offers excellent code performance.

The combination PHP-Apache-Linux features include instantaneous access times, with even greater performance boosts achieved by caching data structures on the server.

PHP enjoys the support of a large group of open-source developers. The community gives excellent technical support to users. The code is continuously updated with improvements and language extensions.

PHP 3, web development tool released in June 1998, is the most popular web development tool, and is now used in Web-related applications by some of the most prominent organizations such as Redhat, Der Spiegel, and NASA

PHP web development technology is today's fastest-growing technology for dynamic Web pages. According to the authoritative Netcraft survey of what technology is actually in use on the Web, PHP web development technology can now be found on more that 6 million domains, and is growing at a rate of up to 15% each month. PHP is available on over 36% of Apache Web servers – the most common server on the Web. The latest version of PHP, PHP 4, was downloaded 265,000 separate times in the first two months it was available. With the open-source trend gaining popularity.