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About This Guide

Welcome to version 2.4.1 of Stronghold Web Server. This guide shows you how to configure the server, perform server administration tasks, and deliver content.

• Chapter 1, "Basic Administration," introduces basic server administration tasks such as starting and stopping the server, using logs and reports, tracking sessions, and setting up proxy service.
  
  
• Chapter 2, "Authentication and Encryption," describes the role of SSL and TLS in Web security and explains how to use them to secure your site.
  
  
• Chapter 3, "Tutorial: Access Control," leads you through three simple access control scenarios step by step.
  
  
• Chapter 4, "Proxy Service," explains how a proxy server works and provides configuration instructions and examples.
  
  
• Chapter 5, "Troubleshooting," offers tips for solving common server problems.
  
  
• Chapter 6, "Text-Based Configuration," shows you how to configure Stronghold manually by editing a text-based configuration file.
  
  
• Chapter 7, "Configuration Reference," explains each Stronghold configuration directive in detail.
  
  
• Chapter 8, "Modules," introduces the included server modules and shows you how to add and remove them.
  
  
• Chapter 9, "Introduction to Content Delivery," describes Stronghold's simplest content delivery features, including imagemaps, content negotiation, and server-side includes.
  
  
• Chapter 10, "Common Gateway Interface," explains CGI, its environment variables, and CGI-related security issues.
  
  
• Chapter 11, "PHP Embedded Scripting," introduces PHP, an HMTL-embedded scripting language that provides an easy alternative to CGI.
  
  
• Chapter 12, "Indexing and Searching," shows you how to use Stronghold's standalone site indexer and search engine.
  
  

For convenient reference, this guide also includes appendices with sample configuration files, HTTP metainformation, server status codes, and Internet country codes.

This guide is also available in HMTL, Postscript, and PDF formats from your CDROM, at the /docs URL of your installed server, and at http://www.c2.net/products/stronghold/docs-2.4.1/ and http://www.int.c2.net/stronghold/docs-2.4.1/. We welcome your feedback. Send comments and suggestions to stronghold-docs@c2.net.

What's New in 2.4.1

The following features are new in version 2.4.1 of Stronghold Web Server:

• Apache 1.3.2
  
  

  This latest version of Apache includes some internal changes that are not listed here. For a comprehensive list of changes in Apache 1.3.2, see http://www.apache.org/docs/new_features_1_3.html.

• New directives help prevent some types of denial-of-service attacks: LimitRequestBody, LimitRequestFields, LimitRequestFieldSize, and LimitRequestLine.
  
  

  See "Client Request Security" on page 7-78.

• Server status reports are now enabled and disabled with the new ExtendedStatus directive.
  
  

  See "Server Status Reports" on page 1-10.

• Proxy service is enhanced:
  
  
  • The new AllowCONNECT directive enables CONNECT proxy transactions on alternative ports.
    
    
  • When a client cancels a proxy request in mid-transfer, the new CacheForceCompletion directive forces Stronghold to finish downloading the requested file into its cache.
    
    
  • The new ProxyVia directive controls how the proxy server handles the Via HTTP header.
    
    
  • The proxy server now prompts the client for authentication when a requested FTP site does not allow anonymous access.
    
    
  • Interoperability with Microsoft Internet Information Server is improved.
    
    

  See "Proxy Service and Caching" on page 7-29.

• The new "NameWidth" value for the IndexOptions directive controls the width of the filename column in directory indices.
  
  
• The error log now records client IP addresses.
  
  

  See "Error Logs" on page 1-6.

• The Include directive is now valid in <Directory> containers and per-directory configuration files.
  
  
• The CheckSpelling directive is now valid in <Directory> containers and per-directory configuration files.
  
  
• The ServerRoot/logs/httpd.pid file is now removed when Stronghold exits.
  
  
• The ERROR_NOTES environment variable now provides more complete information about errors.
  
  

Terminology

This manual assumes proficiency with UNIX operating systems and common programming languages. However, you may not be familiar with some of the terminology it employs to discuss Stronghold. For a comprehensive list of terms and definitions, see the Glossary at the back of this manual.

Typographical Conventions

In body text, this manual follows these typographical conventions:

• Directives and directive containers appear in Letter Gothic.
  
  
• Names of variable values are italicized.
  
  
• URLs, paths, filenames, hostnames, commands, functions, environment variables, and literal values appear in plain text.
  
  

As a UNIX Web server, Stronghold relies on command-line options and text-based configuration files. In order to show all possible alternatives at a glance, this manual uses standard typographical conventions to denote variables and optional elements. For example, this configuration directive can either have the value "all," or one or more protocol values:

In this example, there are several ways to use the directive:

SSLProtocol all
SSLProtocol oneprotocol
SSLProtocol oneprotocol twoprotocol threeprotocol

Additional Resources

Fast, expert technical support via email is free for all commercial Stronghold users, and optional telephone support plans are also available. If you have a problem with Stronghold that is not addressed in the documentation, contact technical support:

In the United States	Elsewhere Worldwide
stronghold-support@c2.net	support@int.c2.net

This guide is designed to provide complete information about all aspects of the server. However, it is not a comprehensive guide to the technology used in Stronghold. If you have technical questions that are not answered here, these additional resources may provide the information you need:

Apache Web Server

• Apache HTTP Server Project. http://www.apache.org/.
  
  
• Apache Week. http://www.apacheweek.com/.
  
  
• Laurie, Ben and Peter Laurie. Apache: The Definitive Guide. Sebastopol: O'Reilly & Associates, 1997. ISBN 1-56592-250-6.
  
  
• Behlendorf, Brian and David Chandler. Running a Perfect Web Site with Apache. Indianapolis: Que, 1996. ISBN 0-7897-0745-4.
  
  
• Ricart, Manuel Alberto. Apache Server Survival Guide. Indianapolis: Sams.net, 1996. ISBN 1-57521-175-0.
  
  
• Apache API Notes. http://www.apache.org/docs/misc/API.html.
  
  
• Apache Modules Registry. http://modules.apache.org/.
  
  

SSL, TLS, and Cryptography

• SSLeay and SSLapps FAQ. http://www.psy.uq.oz.au/~ftp/Crypto.
  
  
• SSL-Talk FAQ. http://www.consensus.com/security/ssl-talk-faq.html.
  
  
• Transport Layer Security (TLS) Charter. http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/tls-charter.html.
  
  
• Schneier, Bruce. Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C. 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996. ISBN 0-471-12845-7.
  
  
• The WWW Security FAQ. http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html.
  
  

CGI and General World Wide Web Programming

• RFC 2068: Hypertext Transfer Protocol-HTTP/1.1. ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc2068.txt.
  
  
• Gundavaram, Shishir. CGI Programming on the World Wide Web. Sebastopol: O'Reilly & Associates, 1996. ISBN 1-56592-168-2.
  
  
• The Common Gateway Interface. http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/.
  
  
• CGI Security Tutorial. http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/mlvanbie/cgisec/.
  
  
• Safe CGI Programming. http://www.cerf.net/~paulp/cgi-security/safe-cgi.txt.
  
  
• eXtended Server-Side Includes (XSSI). http://www.pageplus.com/~hsf/sources/xssi/xssi-1.1.1/.
  
  

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