IBM HTTP Server help: Overview of the IBM HTTP Server v.1.3.12
OVERVIEW OF THE PRODUCT
IBM HTTP Server powered by Apache is a Web server based on the Apache Web server
developed by the Apache Group (www.apache.org).
IBM HTTP Server powered by Apache V1.3.12 is almost the same as Apache V1.3.6,
except that it includes some additional patches from the Apache V1.3.6-dev development
tree.
IBM HTTP Server powered by Apache includes some functions not available in the
Apache Web server developed by the Apache Group. IBM HTTP Server offers:
Support for SSL secure connections.
Fast Response Cache Accelerator (Windows NT and AIX only) -
IBM has extended Apache to work with IBM Fast Response Cache Accelerator (Cache
Accelerator). The Cache Accelerator is an in-kernel mini HTTP GET engine and
HTTP content cache that enables serving static web pages significantly faster
than Apache web server without the Cache Accelerator. By default, the Cache
Accelerator is enabled. The Cache Accelerator can be completely disabled through
configuration file directives.
WebDAV to collaboratively edit and manage files on
remote Web servers.
Ability to produce dynamic content with FastCGI.
The addition of these features required minor modifications to several
of the base Apache source code files:
New IBM-specific modules for:
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
Fast Response Cache Accelerator (Windows NT and AIX only)
Installation of afpa.sys device driver in system32/drivers system directory
(Windows NT only)
It is not possible to rebuild the entire IBM binary distribution with the
given source due to legal restrictions on the SSL technology. However, the Apache
source from which IBM HTTP Server is based is included, and it is possible to
write an Apache module that runs with IBM HTTP Server.
The Apache Web server was originally designed and developed for
Unix systems. Apache V1.3.0 was the first major release of Apache
that included support for MS Windows. The Windows port of Apache
includes many of the most frequently requested new features,
including an API to enable extending the web server function, and a
module that supports a subset of Microsoft ISAPI (in other words,
Microsoft's web server API).
The most notable difference between the Unix version of Apache and
the Windows version of Apache is that Apache for Windows is a
threaded web server (requests are processed per thread) rather than
a process based web server (requests are processed per process).
There are potential performance gains that are possible on a
threaded web server that have not yet been realized by Apache for
Windows.
Note: IBM HTTP Server powered by Apache for Windows NT will not run
on Windows 95 or Windows 98. If you need an Apache web server for
Windows 95 or Windows 98, you can get the source (and possibly the
binary install images) from www.apache.org.
DOCUMENTATION
The documentation available as of the date of this release is
included in HTML format in the ./share/htdocs/manual/ibm
directory. For the most up-to-date documentation, visit the
IBM
HTTP Server Web site.
OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION
There are a couple of very good Internet news groups covering HTTP
servers in general. They have information about all the popular Web
servers. These news groups might help you find for answers to your
questions, so check the news group archives first:
The User directive is not supported. If you run the server as
a service, you can change the user that the server runs as by
clicking Control Panel > Services > Startup.
RFC 1413 (IdentityCheck) is not available.
The regex library build does not generate *.ih headers.
If you implement the Cache Accelerator, set the
MaxRequestPerChild directive to 0 to work around a problem that
occurs when the child process is killed and restarted on a loaded
web server.
LICENSING
See the file called LICENSE.IBM
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to acknowledge the following copyrighted works that make up portions of
IBM HTTP Server based on Apache software:
Portions of this software were developed at the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.
This software contains code derived from the RSA Data Security Inc.
MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm, including various modifications by
Spyglass Inc., Carnegie Mellon University, and Bell Communications
Research, Inc. (Bellcore).
This package contains software written and copyrighted by Henry
Spencer. See the file called src/regex/COPYRIGHT.
The NT port was started with code provided to IBM HTTP Server based on Apache
Group by Ambarish Malpani of ValiCert, Inc. (www.valicert.com).