Options ExecCGI

SetHandler cgi-script

An alternative is to use the ScriptAlias directive, which has a similar effect:

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/www/cgi-bin/

There is a subtle but important difference between these two approaches. In the first approach, you are setting the configuration for a directory directly. In the second, a virtual directory is created and configured, and the original directory is still left without a configuration. In the examples above, there is no difference because the names of the two directories are the same, and the virtual directory effectively hides the real one. But if the name of the virtual directory is different (e.g., my-cgi-bin/), the real directory will remain visible under its own name and you would end up with one web site directory where files are treated like scripts (my-cgi-bin/) and with one where files are treated as files (cgi-bin/). Someone could download the source code of all scripts from the latter. Using the directive approach is recommended when the directory with scripts is under the web server tree. In other cases, you may use ScriptAlias safely.

Logging

Having a record of web server activity is of utmost importance. Logs tell you which content is popular and whether your server is underutilized, overutilized, misconfigured, or misused. This subject is so important that a complete chapter is dedicated to it. Here I will only bring your attention to two details: explaining how to configure logging and how not to lose valuable information. It is not important to understand all of the meaning of logging directives at this point. When you are ready, proceed to Chapter 8 for a full coverage.

Two types of logs exist. The access log is a record of all requests sent to a particular web server or web site. To create an access log, you need two steps. First, use the LogFormat directive to define a logging format. Then, use the CustomLog directive to create an access log in that format:

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\

"" combined

CustomLog /var/www/logs/access_log combined

The error log contains a record of all system events (such as web server startup and shutdown) and a record of errors that occurred during request processing. For example, a request for a resource that does not exist generates an HTTP 404 response for the client, one entry in the access log, and one entry in the error log. Two directives are required to set up the error log, just as for the access log. The following LogLevel directive increases the logging detail from a default value of notice to info. The ErrorLog directive creates the actual log file:

LogLevel info

ErrorLog /var/www/logs/error_log

Setting Server Configuration Limits

Though you are not likely to fine-tune the server during installation, you must be aware of the existence of server limits and the way they are configured. Incorrectly configured limits make a web server an easy target for attacks (see Chapter 5). The following configuration directives all show default Apache configuration values and define how long the server will wait for a slow client:

# wait up to 300 seconds for slow clients

TimeOut 300

# allow connections to be reused between requests

KeepAlive On

# allow a maximum of 100 requests per connection

MaxKeepAliveRequests 100

# wait up to 15 seconds for the next

# request on an open connection

KeepAliveTimeout 15

The default value for the connection timeout (300 seconds)