Cookies are very important for dynamic websites. They allow you to set parameters for user interaction. With cookies, your website can remember visitors and show them appropriate data, ads, and even specific pages. By default, cookies only last for a single browser session. With the CookieExpires Apache directive, you can …
January, 2010
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20 January
Installing software on an OpenSolaris server
Continuing with our tour of server operating systems, today we will take a look at Sun Microsystems’ OpenSolaris, the free and open source version of the popular Unix-based Solaris OS. Those who experience with other Unix or Linux servers should find much of OpenSolaris familiar. Nevertheless, there are some key …
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19 January
How to install Apache on a FreeBSD server
Continuing with our series this week on non-Linux operating system servers, today we will learn about FreeBSD. Its proponents (of BSD distributions in general) call it the most secure and reliable operating system for Internet-connected servers. It comes with several different versions of Apache. Here is a quick guide to …
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18 January
WampServer on Windows
We have spent a great deal of blog space learning about Linux servers and how to optimize them, but Linux is certainly not the only kid on the block. This week we will look at some other operating systems and how they interact with the Web. First up is Microsoft …
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13 January
Logging user agent data in Apache
Question: How do I tell Apache to log user agent information? Answer: Normally, Apache logs information about site visitors to /var/logs/httpd/ and uses files like access_log, error_log, etc. While it does give some information about the users, it does not include user agent information by default. User agent information looks …
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11 January
Hide Apache version from outside requests
Question: Is there a way to hide the version of Apache running on my server? Answer: Yes, there certainly is, and there is a good reason to do so. While the version of Apache running on your server might be inconsequential to the average, it could be ammunition in the …
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11 January
How to use Apache to deny access to certain directories
In the past, we explained how to deny access to a file or directory with the allow/deny Apache server directive. There are, however, two other ways to do it that may be more to your liking. The allow/deny directive displays the 403 Forbidden page or whatever you have in its …
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7 January
PHP module vs PHP CGI binary
Question: What are the differences between running PHP as an Apache module and running it as a CGI binary on a Linux server? Answer: One of the biggest differences between a PHP Apache module and a PHP CGI binary is that the Apache module is just that: a module of …
December, 2009
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24 December
The /var directory in Linux
In previous posts, we covered the Linux file and directory structure. One very important directory in Linux is /var. This directory general contains the following subdirectories: 1. backups – primarily used by APT, this directory contains backups of package update states. 2. cache – certain applications use this directory to …
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18 December
The sysconfig directory in Redhat-based Linux
Redhat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, and Centos have a convenient directory called “sysconfig”. It is located under the main /etc directory and contains many of the frequently-used configuration files necessary to operate a server. Often the configuration files are for command line options or very specific settings rather than the complete …