Web Servers, Security, & Maintenance

by Dave Keays, dave@rdksoftware.com - March 30, 2002 at 23:54:31:

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written by Eric Larson & Brian Stephens

published by Prentice Hall; The Foundations of Website Architecture series

ISBN: 0-13-022534-7

list: $46.00

This interactive workbook for webmasters is used both in classrooms and for self-study. (The Server Administration class at Santa Ana College uses it).

"Web Servers, Security, & Maintenance" is part of a four book series which works towards a webmaster certificate from World Organization of Webmasters (WOW). WOW was created to "enhance the role and position of those individuals who create, manage, maintain, and market Web sites."

According to the book, you should have a server to experiment with, but it says that installing Linux and Apache will do the job. (editors note: a list of possible down-load sites for different Linux distributions were published in the February 2002 ORANGE BYTES.) It doesn't matter which server you use since the instructions are as platform neutral as possible. In the Santa Ana college class, apache on a NT4 is installed.

The training is more than just a book. Prentice Hall has set-up a web-site to facilitate the exercises which makes the lessons more real-life. The books walks you through exercises and explains them so you get both book knowledge and the understanding that comes from hands-on experience. In one exercise, SSL (secure socket layer) is demonstrated by having the reader fill-out a form on the companion site and sniff the results (look at the actual network data packets). There are exercises about reading log files, noticing suspicious activities, server side programming (Common Gateway Interface, Server Side Includes, Active Server Pages, and Java Server Pages), and more.

To learn more about Prentice Halls interactive learning or their Webmaster certificate, go to: www.phptr.com/phpinteractive

The companion web site at www.phptr.com/larson_stephens/.

Even more questions can be found at www.phptr.com/phpinteractive/architecture/index.hmtl.

WOWs address is www.joinwow.org.

The book is available at:

fatbrain.com $46

bookpool.com $41.50

Amazon.com $46 (new) or $36 (used)

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