Rating: 
Summary: Horrible, horrible, horrible
Review: This is a horrible, stunningly horrible, book. It has, sadly, persuaded me
that I cannot simply trust the O'Reilly brand as signifying, if not the
best book in a particular area, at least a worthwhile book.
The central problem is that this book has no idea what it wants to be.
It tries to be a tutorial, a cookbook and a reference, all intermingled.
One paragraph it's trying to talk to newbies, the next it assumes you are
a long time Apache veteran.
One role, however, that it seems to have no interest in playing is that
of giving the big picture, of describing exactly what Apache can (and
can't) do in a given area, and why you might care, before getting into various nitty gritty.
I'm afraid I can't recommend a good book on Apache to buy; I would
however urge you to stay away from this one. The worst shovelware out,
Sams Teach yourself Apache in 24hrs or Apache for Dummies, cannot be
worse than this sad failure.
(This reviews version 3 of the book. I have no idea if versions 1 and 2
were less dreadful.)
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother
Review: I didn't find this book useful at all. In 2+ years of administering Apache on Linux and Solaris, this book didn't help a single time. Use the Apache documentation provided along with Apache (the web server) instead. You'll be a lot better off.
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother
Review: I didn't find this book useful at all. In 2+ years of administering Apache on Linux and Solaris, this book didn't help a single time. Use the Apache documentation provided along with Apache (the web server) instead. You'll be a lot better off.
Rating:
Summary: NOT FOR TOMCAT USERS
Review: If you are looking at this book for information about Tomcat, DON'T! The information is out-dated and limited. The authors discuss Tomcat 3.2 because Tomcat 4.0 uses Java 1.2 and the authors state "...Java 1.2, is less widely available than Java 1.1..." This book was Published in December 2002. Java 1.2 was available in 1999, you do the math! This is unacceptable. I find it ironic that another book, "Professional Apache Tomcat," (WROX), which was published before new Apache book covers 4.0, even 4.1! It also appears, from the tone of the book, that the authors do not care much for Java and would rather the reader use Perl. Do not buy this book if you want Tomcat information. Honestly for straight Apache information I would stick with the 2nd edition of the Apache book and use on-line resources. Sadly O'Reilly books are lacking in quality lately.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for System Admins. Otherwise... Not much to see here.
Review: Just as an intro, I am likely to be biased towards this book because it does not cover topics that are particularly helpful to me at this time. If you are a System Administrator, get this book. It will help you configure Apache down to great detail. If you are a programmer, get the online information. It is more up to date. This book did increase my knowledge of security for Apache, as security is covered well in this book. It covers troubleshooting for both Unix and Windows (As if a Windows system is secure enough to run a web server) Systems. As I am a programmer in the Java Language, I was disappointed to see that the authors pushed toward using scripting languages with Apache rather than full programming languages. This will limit what you can do with the Apache Server. This is a very sad commentary. Also, being a programmer, I am more interested in the API's rather than the configuration of a Web Server. Now that the book is already outdated, the API's in the book are no good to me. So I use the API's provided with the Apache documentation. Not to mention, the authors recommend using Java 1.1. It has been several years since Java 1.2 has even been released. Did the authors do their research on Java before they printed the book? This book covers the installation and configuration of mod_perl and Tomcat/j_serv, this was just fine for mod_perl (a scripting language), but did not help my cause, as I use Tomcat, and the authors are not very knowledgeable for Java based applications.
Rating:
Summary: Good for System Admins. Otherwise... Not much to see here.
Review: Just as an intro, I am likely to be biased towards this book because it does not cover topics that are particularly helpful to me at this time. If you are a System Administrator, get this book. It will help you configure Apache down to great detail. If you are a programmer, get the online information. It is more up to date. This book did increase my knowledge of security for Apache, as security is covered well in this book. It covers troubleshooting for both Unix and Windows (As if a Windows system is secure enough to run a web server) Systems. As I am a programmer in the Java Language, I was disappointed to see that the authors pushed toward using scripting languages with Apache rather than full programming languages. This will limit what you can do with the Apache Server. This is a very sad commentary. Also, being a programmer, I am more interested in the API's rather than the configuration of a Web Server. Now that the book is already outdated, the API's in the book are no good to me. So I use the API's provided with the Apache documentation. Not to mention, the authors recommend using Java 1.1. It has been several years since Java 1.2 has even been released. Did the authors do their research on Java before they printed the book? This book covers the installation and configuration of mod_perl and Tomcat/j_serv, this was just fine for mod_perl (a scripting language), but did not help my cause, as I use Tomcat, and the authors are not very knowledgeable for Java based applications.
Rating: 
Summary: This book served its purpose.
Review: Now you may think that there are better books out there. And there maybe. However this book is a "five star" book. I bought this book for a beginning apache class. We were able to follow the instructions and down load the Apache server from the Internet. The only problem we had was with the NIS system that was not anticipated in this book. It was a lot more important to use this book to read the flat files and see how they were related to each other. The section on Extra Modules (chapter 12) gave a way to improve the server and go outside the scope of this book. This book covered more details than I was looking for; this ways different people can use the book to target their particular needs. You can safely say:
"This book has everything you need to set up an apache server."
Rating: 
Summary: PLEASING; BUT WITH SOME SETBACKS
Review: Regardless of the fact that the publishers of this book claimed that it will help readers discover how to obtain, set-up, and secure the software on both Unix and Windows systems, do not bank on these claims if you are a Windows user.
The truth is that these publicity-claims are applicable to Unix, Linux and BSD platforms. Windows systems users need a lot of prayers, for events to shape-up as they would like.
Conversely, for non-Windows users, there is a lot to celebrate. This updated edition covered (the latest) Apache 2.0 without compromising on the older 1.3 version. Also, there are new sections on Cocoon, Tomcat, mod_perl, PHP, and several others.
Overall, this is a good book; but would have been impeccable, if all the claims its publisher advertised have real life applications.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent book.
Review: This book offers a step by step process of installing the Tomcat webserver
to Unix (primarily) and Windows servers. at every stage, the authors have
taken the time to include the information about windows operating system. the authors have taken the time to arrange the flow of the chapters to
match the events in a real world server configuration exercise of an
apache. the book also describes the differences in the versionf of Apache
for the benefit of users. In all, the book is good material for the not-so experienced apache users
like me. regards
Ravi Mahalingam
Columbia, SC Java Users group.
Rating:
Summary: Decent book.
Review: This book offers a step by step process of installing the Tomcat webserver
to Unix (primarily) and Windows servers. at every stage, the authors have
taken the time to include the information about windows operating system. the authors have taken the time to arrange the flow of the chapters to
match the events in a real world server configuration exercise of an
apache. the book also describes the differences in the versionf of Apache
for the benefit of users. In all, the book is good material for the not-so experienced apache users
like me. regards
Ravi Mahalingam
Columbia, SC Java Users group.
| 
