Solutions in this Chapter:

• Background: HyperText Transfer Protocol

• Understanding Microsoft s Internet Information Server

• Understanding Apache Web Server

• Migrating Static Sites from IIS to Apache

• Summary

• Solutions Fast Track

• Frequently Asked Questions

Introduction

Since the early days of the Internet, no single protocol has taken off quite like the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). In August of 1991, Tim Berners-Lee announced the first Web server that hosted files from The European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). A year later, there were 50 web servers online. By 1999, there were over 720,000 public Web servers. In August 2004, according to the most recent Netcraft survey, over 54 million Web servers are accepting requests and this number is growing by 1 million every month. Of these, almost 70% of them are running Apache. The simplicity of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) combined with ease of administration of an HTTP server allows anyone to host content for public viewing on the World Wide Web (WWW), perhaps some day everybody will be running one.

People deploy Web servers in many different situations and for many reasons. Many corporate businesses, independent consultants, as well as do-it-yourself end users have established lucrative businesses providing the technical know-how. You can find the fruits of their labor running on big installation servers, small network appliance firmware, and even the most unlikely places, like a sump pump. With some companies netting millions of dollars for their web applications and others simply upgrading their current systems to be web- aware , it s no...