23.3 Resources

This section includes centralized resources that you should find useful when you work with mod_perl and related technologies, such as Apache, Perl, CGI, CVS, Squid, DBI, SQL, Security, etc.

23.3.1 mod_perl

• mod_perl home page: http://perl.apache.org/

• mod_perl documentation: http://perl.apache.org/docs/

• mod_perl books

  • Writing Apache Modules with Perl and C, by Lincoln Stein and Doug MacEachern (O'Reilly)

    http://www.modperl.com is the home site for this book, which is about creating web server modules using the Apache API. You absolutely must have this book if you plan to use mod_perl for anything other than speeding up plain CGI scripts. It will teach you the mod_perl API and provide lots of examples to learn from. This book is also very useful for developers who write Apache modules in C.

  • The mod_perl Developer's Cookbook, by Geoffrey Young, Paul Lindner, and Randy Kobes (Sams)

    http://www.modperlcookbook.org/ is the home site of this book, which will save you a lot of precious development time. It provides out-of-box solutions to pretty much any problem or challenge you may encounter while developing mod_perl applications. Every solution is followed by an in-depth discussion, helping you understand how the solution works and making it easy to adjust the provided code to your particular situation.

  • mod_perl Pocket Reference, by Andrew Ford (O'Reilly)

    http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/modperlpr/ is the home site of this book.

    You should probably also get the Apache Pocket Reference, by the same author and the same publisher: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/apachepr/.

    See also Andrew's collection of reference cards for Apache and other programs: http://www.refcards.com/.

  • There are a few good books that cover technologies that deploy mod_perl. Among them are Embedding Perl in HTML with Mason, by Dave Rolsky and Ken Williams (O'Reilly), available from http://www.masonbook.com/; and Running Weblogs with Slash, by chromatic, Brian Aker, and David Krieger (O'Reilly). To see an updated list of books, please refer to http://perl.apache.org/docs/offsite/books.html.

23.3.2 mod_perl Mailing Lists

• The mod_perl mailing list

  The Apache/Perl mailing list is available for mod_perl users and developers to share ideas, solve problems, and discuss things related to mod_perl and the Apache::* modules. To subscribe to this list, send an empty email to modperl-subscribe@perl.apache.org. To unsubscribe, send email to modperl-unsubscribe@perl.apache.org. Send email to modperl@perl.apache.org to post to the list.

  To subscribe to the digest list, send email to modperl-digest-subscribe@perl.apache.org.

  The searchable mod_perl mailing-list archives are available at http://mathforum.org/epigone/modperl/. Thanks to Ken Williams for this.

  The following archives are also available:

  http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/web/182/0/

  http://www.mail-archive.com/modperl%40apache.org/

  http://www.davin.ottawa.on.ca/archive/modperl/

  http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-modperl

  http://www.egroups.com/group/modperl/

• The mod_perl development mailing list

  This list is for discussions about the development of the core mod_perl. To subscribe, send an empty email to dev-subscribe@perl.apache.org. To unsubscribe from the list, send an empty email to dev-unsubscribe@perl.apache.org. To get help with the list, send an empty email to dev-help@perl.apache.org.

  The list's searchable archives are:

http://mathforum.org/epigone/modperl-dev/

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-modperl-dev&r=1&w=2#apache-modperl-dev

http://www.mail-archive.com/dev%40perl.apache.org/

• The mod_perl documentation mailing list

  This mailing list is for discussing the development of the mod_perl documentation and site. To subscribe, send an empty email to docs-dev-subscribe@perl.apache.org. To unsubscribe from the list, send an empty email to docs-dev-unsubscribe@perl.apache.org. To get help with the list, send an empty email to docs-dev-help@perl.apache.org.

  The list has a searchable archive at http://mathforum.org/epigone/modperl-docs-dev/.

• The Apache test framework development mailing list

  The test-dev list is the list where the Apache HTTP Test project is discussed.

  To subscribe, send an empty email to test-dev-subscribe@httpd.apache.org. To unsubscribe from the list, send an empty email to test-dev-unsubscribe@httpd.apache.org. To get help with the list, send an empty email to test-dev-help@httpd.apache.org.

  The list has a searchable archive at http://www.apachelabs.org/test-dev/.

• The advocacy mailing list

  The list for mod_perl advocacy issues, discussions about sites, etc.

  To subscribe send an empty email to advocacy-subscribe@perl.apache.org. To unsubscribe from the list, send an empty email to advocacy-unsubscribe@perl.apache.org. To get help with the list, send an empty email to advocacy@perl.apache.org.

  The list has a searchable archive at http://www.mail-archive.com/advocacy@perl.apache.org/.

• The modperl-cvs mailing list

  The mod_perl CVS list is the list where you can watch mod_perl getting patched. No real discussions happen on this list, but if you want to know about the latest changes in the mod_perl core before everyone else, this is the list to be on.

  To subscribe, send email to modperl-cvs-subscribe@perl.apache.org. To unsubscribe send email to modperl-cvs-unsubscribe@perl.apache.org. Send email to modperl-cvs@perl.apache.org to post to the list.

  The list is archived at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-modperl-cvs&r=1&w=2#apache-modperl-cvs.

23.3.3 Perl

The following resources are available for Perl:

• Books:

  • Programming Perl, Third Edition, by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant (O'Reilly)

  • The Perl Cookbook, by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington (O'Reilly)

  • Effective Perl Programming, by Joseph Hall (Addison Wesley)

  • Web Client Programming with Perl, by Clinton Wong (O'Reilly)

• The Perl FAQ: http://www.perl.com/language/faq/

• The Perl home pages: http://www.perl.com/ and http://www.perl.org/

• The Perl Journal: http://www.tpj.com/

• The Perl Review: http://www.theperlreview.com/

• Perl Monks: http://www.perlmonks.org/

• Searchable Perl documentation: http://www.perldoc.com/

• Perl Module Mechanics: http://world.std.com/~swmcd/steven/perl/module_mechanics.html

  This page describes the mechanics of creating, compiling, releasing, and maintaining Perl modules

• Perl news: http://use.perl.org/

• Searchable CPAN: http://search.cpan.org/

• Perl mailing lists: http://lists.perl.org/

23.3.4 Perl/CGI

The following resources are valuable for learning more about writing CGI scripts with Perl:

• The Official Guide to CGI.pm, by Lincoln Stein (John Wiley & Sons)

• CGI/Perl Cookbook, by Craig Patchett and Matthew Wright (John Wiley & Sons)

• CGI Programming with Perl, Second Edition, by Scott Guelich, Shishir Gundavaram, and Gunther Birznieks (O'Reilly)

Here are some resources on the Web you might find useful:

Answers to Some Troublesome Perl and Perl/CGI Questions

http://stason.org/TULARC/webmaster/myfaq.html

Idiot's Guide to CGI Programming

http://www.webdeveloper.com/cgi-perl/cgi_idiots_guide_to_perl.html

WWW Security FAQ

http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/www-security-faq.html

CGI/Perl Taint Mode FAQ

http://www.gunther.web66.com/FAQS/taintmode.html (by Gunther Birznieks)

cgi-list Mailing List

Send email to majordomo@jann.com with body:

subscribe cgi-list

CGI Newsgroup

comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi

23.3.5 Apache

The following resources are useful for learning more about Apache:

• Apache Software Foundation home: http://www.apache.org/

• Apache httpd server: http://httpd.apache.org/

• Apache mailing lists: http://www.apache.org/foundation/mailinglists.html contains a comprehensive list of all Apache projects' mailing lists

• Apache quick reference card: http://www.refcards.com/ (other reference cards are also available from this link)

• The Apache FAQ: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/FAQ.html

• Apache server documentation: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/ for 1.3.xx, http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/ for 2.0

• Apache handlers in C: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/handler.html

• mod_rewrite Guide: http://www.engelschall.com/pw/apache/rewriteguide/

• Security

  • "Security and Apache: An Essential Primer," by Ken Coar: http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/print/1527/

  • "Using Apache with Suexec on Linux," by Ken Coar: http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/print/1445/

• The Unix chroot jail facility

  • "How to `chroot' an Apache tree with Linux and Solaris": http://penguin.epfl.ch/chroot.html

  • "Installing and Securing the Apache Webserver with SSL," by Dale Coddington: http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1356/

  • "How to break out of a chroot( ) jail": http://www.bpfh.net/simes/computing/chroot-break.html

• The FreeBSD jail facility:

  • Jails: Confining the omnipotent root," by Paul-Henning Kamp and Robert N. M. Watson: http://docs.freebsd.org/44doc/papers/jail/jail.html

  • Chapter 12 of FreeBSD Developers' Handbook, by Evan Sarmiento: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/jail.html

• mod_throttle_access: http://www.fremen.org/apache/

• Books:

  • How to Set Up and Maintain a Web Site: The Guide for Information Providers, Second Edition, by Lincoln Stein (Addison Wesley)

  • Apache: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition, by Ben Laurie and Peter Laurie (O'Reilly)

  • Apache Server for Dummies, by Ken Coar (IDE)

23.3.6 DBI and SQL

The following resources are useful for questions on DBI and SQL:

• Introduction to Structured Query Language: http://www.dbbm.fiocruz.br/class/Lecture/d17/sql/jhoffman/sqltut.html

• "SQL for Web Nerds," by Philip Greenspun: http://www.arsdigita.com/books/sql/

• DBI Examples and Performance Tuning, by Jeffery Baker: http://www.saturn5.com/~jwb/dbi-examples.html

• DBI home page: http://dbi.perl.org/

• DBI mailing-list information: http://www.fugue.com/dbi/

• DBI mailing-list archives: http://www.bitmechanic.com/mail-archives/dbi-users/ and http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/dbi/

23.3.7 Squid

• Home page: http://www.squid-cache.org/

• FAQ: http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/FAQ/FAQ.html

• Users guide: http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/Users-Guide/

• Mailing lists: http://www.squid-cache.org/mailing-lists.html

23.3.8 CVS

• CVS instructions for access to the mod_perl repository: http://perl.apache.org/contribute/cvs_howto.html

• Open source development with CVS: http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/

• Online documents: http://www.cvshome.org/docs/

• CVS quick reference card: http://www.refcards.com/about/cvs.html

23.3.9 Performance and Scalability

• "Techniques and Technologies for Scaling Internet Services" mailing list: scalable@arctic.org. Subscribe by sending a message to scalable-subscribe@arctic.org.

• "Solaris 2.x?Tuning Your TCP/IP Stack and More": http://www.sean.de/Solaris/tune.html

  This page talks about the TCP/IP stack and various tricks of tuning your system to get the most out of it as a web server. While the information is for the Solaris 2.x OS, most of it is relevant to other Unix flavors. At the end, an extensive list of related literature is presented.

23.3.10 Web Security

• Web Security: A Step-by-Step Reference Guide, by Lincoln Stein (Addison Wesley)

• Web Security and Electronic Commerce, by Simpson Garfinkle with Gene Spafford (O'Reilly)

• Chapter 13 of Apache: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition, by Ben Laurie and Peter Laurie (O'Reilly) talks extensively about the Apache configuration process